On our way to the starting gate, we learned Lee Carmichael's bike had fallen off Justin's truck. I noticed that Lee was kind of wandering around like a drunken person. He said he was going to race Justin’s bike while Justin drove around to look for his bike. I think I said, “Ok; that sounds reasonable.” Lining up at the start, Lee still looked a little too dazed and confused to be operating heavy machinery, so it is a good thing his bike is so light.
On the starting road and up the first climb Lee kept looking back. I imagined he kept expecting Justin to be running alongside waiving his bike in the air, shouting, “found it!” It got to the point that I was looking back in case he saw something I needed to see as well.
Unlike most NUE’s, this one starts out pretty fast because the single track at around mile 7 is a big pinch point. It’s close enough that everyone races toward it but far enough away that you're already hurting by the time you get there. Nearly at the top of the climb, about ½ mile from the single track, the pace was fierce like a Chattanooga TNR sprint section and the field was twitchier than a Crash 5 road race. A very steep pitch in the double track jammed up the pack and some riders had to hop off and run. One such rider, positioned at my 10 o’clock position, slipped and fell back into me and landed squarely on my wheel as I moved to get out his way. The Stans Race Gold is a great race wheel and has put up with a ton of abuse but I do not recommend having someone sit on it. The guy jumped up and began to scramble away.
I said: “Hey, you just tacoed my freakin wheel!”
“That’s racing, bro.” He turned and ran off before I could get a good enough look at him. In my opinion, he should be responsible and should at least have given his name to discuss it later. But I guess that's racing. Bro.
Standing there, on the remote mountain, watching dozens of riders pass every minute, I thought about how I was going to get down, how much I was looking forward to taking a nap, and if I could somehow get down without Stephanie finding out that I’d DNF’d. Before I had to worry about any of those things along comes good buddy Keith. The first words out of his mouth were:
“You want my bike?”
“What? I can’t take your bike!”
“What about my wheel, you want my wheel? My sciatica is killing me. I’m not going to finish.”
“How are you going to get down?”
“You let me worry about that.”
I couldn’t believe it. I crossed the trail, frogger style, through the racing pack of riders to reach Keith’s side.
Just as I jumped into the tall grass to reach Keith, he grabbed me across the chest and pulled me back. I looked down and, lo and behold, there was a coiled copperhead sitting ready to strike. I actually had to jump out of the way as it raced at me.
This was no hallucination… this man Keith, whom I’ve only ever met one other time, gave up his wheel for me to race and saved my life from an adolescent copperhead that was ready to kill me. Who would have thought so much could happen 7 or 8 miles into an NUE?
While standing there running from snakes and exchanging wheels, it felt like the whole race had passed me by. I was already thinking about waiting on Stephanie and forgetting about actually ‘racing’ but Keith had one last gift for me.
His parting words, before I left him stranded on the mountaintop were: “Hey, Just do well!”
Crap, I thought. Now I have to race.
I saw Justin at Aid 1 and let him know that Keith was up there hanging out with my broken wheel. Later, Stephanie saw Justin sprinting up the mountain off the trail like Legolas the elf carrying a bike and what she thought was a spare wheel.
Stephanie also said that Lee Carmichael passed her after Aid 2 which doesn’t make any sense because I never saw him again. Lance, who looks just like lee with the same clothes, also passed her. So did Lance pass her twice or did Carmichael somehow get behind her on the course and then pass me without knowing it? It’s all a big fog.
Vicki Barclay, who had experienced a bad mechanical on the first climb, caught me and passed back on the downhill to aid 1 along with her No Tubes Domestique, Rich O’neil. Rich proceeded to bury himself for the greater good of pulling Vicki back into the running, ultimately passing Brenda for 4th place. I wanted to hang on to their wheel but I had to stop and talk to Justin. I passed Rich on the Soul Crusher and I believe he was truly crushed, moving just fast enough to keep his bike from falling over.
The rain was unbelievable. At first I thought it was great because rain and 75 degrees beats sun and 95 degrees any day. However, as the day wore on, the trails got worse and worse and my tires would pack with mud, making the climbs painstakingly slow.
It was a slow day for everyone but I did improve my time by 2 hours, 23 minutes over last year so I guess I can’t complain.
Stephanie, being a bit behind me, suffered even more on the back half of the course as the trail conditions continued to worsen. She was a victim of the soul crusher and started going backwards around mile 65. I know the feeling of having your world close in and all those riders you worked so hard to stay in front of seem to pass you so easily.
She still improved her time from last year while most everyone slowed down, so she has a lot to be proud of. She finished 18th out of 37 finishers plus 21 DNF’s. Unless I’ve done my math wrong, she has 6th place pretty well locked in for the series with a shot at 5th place, depending on how Saturday goes at Fools Gold.
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