As the storm clouds gathered and the sky darkened as we
headed out Friday on US421 to Boone, the lone Road Dogs (myself, Tom Sheffield,
Alan Nechemias) should have known that this was an omen.
The rain subsided slightly as we arrived at the Valle
Crucis Park to pick up our registration materials. We were immediately waved down in the parking lot by a
gentleman that told us they were moving the registration to the Valle Crucis
Elementary school due to the elements.
We drove down to the elementary school and were greeted
rather warmly by the people there as they were setting up everything.
A gentleman was showing us the Litespeed Tuscany that was being raffled
off. Then, rather nonchalantly, he
stated, “Have you seen the new course this year?”.
“New course?”, was our reply. “Yes,
due to the road construction on the Parkway and the fact that people have been
complaining the course is not tough enough, we’ve modified it”. Well that’s a fine time to tell us. I trained for an 8300’ of climbing course.
With the modifications, we figured it was going to be 10,000’.
(By the way, the web site, the registration materials and the T-shirt all
had the old course).
The modification was basically this.
Any of you that have gone out with Allen Walker and me on the Blowing
Rock 50 loop (or 62, if you add Beech) know this well.
Take the last 35 miles of Allen’s loop, beginning at NC194 where it
starts to climb and ride it to Blowing Rock.
That takes you through Banner Elk, Linville, past Grandfather Mountain,
etc.). So, basically you have about 4500 feet of climbing in the
first 35 miles of this event. Oh,
and there was no warm-up. Since the
ride starts at Valle Crucis Elementary, you go a whopping 0.1 mile before
turning on NC194 and starting your climb. Oh
my aching legs!
This modification proved troublesome as I planned my
entire strategy around just getting over Snake Mountain.
Now, you had to do all of this other climbing before you got to Snake.
Well, the three Road Dogs actually did fairly well
considering the bait and switch. I
made it to Blowing Rock in 2 hrs, 12 minutes and Tom and Allen were not that far
behind me.
After climbing out of Blowing Rock, we got on the Parkway
and then some other local roads. We
basically descended for about 10 miles once we hit the Parkway.
That put us back on NC194 outside of Boone heading for Meat Camp road,
the home of Snake Mountain. As I
got on NC194, my bottles were emptied, so when we hit Meat Camp, I stopped at
the rest stop and filled one bottle.
Then I began the climb (by myself because no one else stopped) up Snake.
Meat Camp road starts off with a very gradual grade for about 3 miles, it
then steepens to about 10% for about a mile and then it goes to 15% (200 feet of
climbing in 0.4 miles at one point). The
10-15 MPH headwind made this very difficult.
I felt that I was beginning to fade (mile 55).
I was dehydrated, hadn’t eaten enough and was slightly under-trained.
I was seeing 3.5 MPH in the 15% grade section.
I knew I was in trouble when I saw some guy get off his bike to walk and
I couldn’t close on him. Well, somehow I made it over the top and began the rather
treacherous descent. At the bottom,
I stopped to fill both bottles. That’s
where Alan N. rode past. I yelled
at him. He was oblivious.
I continued down the road and picked up about 7 other
guys along the way. We crossed over
to Tennessee near Trade and got on US421 heading back toward Boone.
Then we turned on old 421 and began a slight 10 mile descent.
We worked our way up to Alan and some 21 year old Appalachian State waif
who weighed maybe 85 pounds. I was
starting to feel good again. I
guess in my mind, the tough stuff was over.
Well there was one part of this course, a 15 mile loop, than none of the
Road Dogs had seen before. We
turned onto the loop and were greeted with about a 6 mile climb, similar to
Shull’s Mill Road. The ASU waif
(all 85 pounds of her) separated herself from the 8 guys and was not seen again
(except at the finish). At the top,
I was about 30 yards off, but lost it on the descent.
Some of these guys must have seen this descent before, because I was
trying my best, but they were pulling away.
Must have been all of the switch backs and the warning signs put up by
the organizers that scared me enough to actually put on the brakes.
Of course, this meant that the last 15 miles were going
to be by myself. And, yes, it
turned into a death march. I
managed to get over two more decent sized bumps on the way back in and arrived
back at the school with a time of 5:53. That
put me 45th out of 350. Alan
was 5:51. Tom was 6:01.
Now that I know what this is all about, I will definitely
train a little harder for it next year. In
retrospect, the course was fantastic, the organization was great and the people
were very friendly. I highly
recommend this one.
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