19th Annual Rowdy Dawg Notes

This has been my first year directing races. The Rowdy Dawg was my second go of it and I hope everyone had a fun experience. By all reports I've heard, the 19th Annual Rowdy Dawg went off well. Felt a strong positive vibe from everyone all day. I had fun at least and look forward to the next one.

I want to give my friend and Co-Director, Brad Buchanan from Montgomery County Parks & Rec a shout. He has wanted to be a part of the race for a couple years, and the energy and resources he brought to the Rowdy Dawg this year was extraordinary.

We did a few things differently this year to prepare folks for a bigger event next year. We moved the Registration Tent & Start/Finish Line back to Boley Field (the more traditional location) and put racer parking up the road at Broce's Field about 8/10ths of a mile - it worked pretty well. We'll tweak a few things next year to reduce confusion.

We had the support of VT Corps of Cadets - Bravo Company, at key marshall stations. They ROCKED! I had numerous comments from racers about the great job they did.

Alpha Chi Omega came out and did a super job manning up our two aid stations. There help was also well appreciated - and I have heard many compliments on how smoothly the aid stations were run.

We are already preparing for the 20th Anniversary of Rowdy Dawg. We are hoping to do a two-day festival that will include things not seen since the first race at Price's Mountain back in 1988, and add a few new twists.

Some of the highlights we are hoping to include:
- Huffy Toss
- MTB hill climb
- Super D
- Super Freestyle
- Hopefully a nice bonfire!
- Lots of food
- 1988 era entry fee that covers the whole event - hopefully sponsors can help make that a reality.
- Of course another tough Rowdy Dawg race on Sunday.

Next on the list for events is the Dirty Dawg Cycling Festival up at Mountain Lake on June 14-15th, 2008. The plan is to include both road and mountain bike events.
- Road HillClimb TT up Salt Pond Mountain
- Hopefully a Trek/Gary Fisher Demo
- Possibly an IMBA presentation
- An improved XC Race
- A stupid hard XXC Race
- Guided mountain bike rides for all levels on the trails
- Guided road bike rides showing off some sweet back roads
... much more to be done

Shenandoah 100 / 'doah MTB Festival / Rowdy Dawg

Shenandoah 100
A busy summer has led to an intense autumn. Leading off was the Shenandoah 100 Mountain Bike Race on September 23rd. This was my second go of it and I wanted to improve over last year's performance. I focused on better hydration and smarter tire selection. I only rode about 150 miles more than last year in preparing for this event. Instead of doing more longer rides I did high intensity short rides more often. Short as in about 30-35 minutes on a the crit course in the woods around our house. Id go in, warm up 5 mins. and then just crush it till I had to get ready for work in the mornings

My tire set-up was Bontrager Super X Revolt Tubeless 2.2's with Stan's of course. At about 32 psi front and 35 psi rear they really hooked up and rolled with minimal effort. Best thing was - NO FLATS! This is the same tire that Chris Eatough (6 World 24 Solo Champion) runs and he has had one flat in that entire span.

The race was extra exciting this year because Floyd Landis (TdF Champion 2006) was racing and everyone thought he could give Eatough a run for his money - he had just finished second in the Leadville 100 - could've won it but for a crash and a flat. Unfortunately, Eatough had a mechanical on the second big climb of the race and we were denied the opportunity to see who had what. Floyd went on to finish third.

My race went well, Greg 'HiFi' Hylton and I duo-teamed up after a fast start and attacking riders on 'Cookie' at the top of the first climb. This rocky, singletrack had most folks pushing their bikes while we middle-ringed on through - passing dozens. Greg had his first of 6 flats for the day (NOT running Stan's) on the fire road leading to the Hankey Mtn. climb. We changed them out like an F-1 team and didn't lose too much time.

My hydration plan consisted of two bottles of Hammer Perpetuem and HEED throughout the race. Regular shots of Hammer gel and Clif Blox did the job. My energy was steady through the race with no twinges or cramps. We kept our pace steady - hammered the downhills and team time-trialed the flats and climbs.

We had a good time and things went well. The Death Climb after checkpoint 4 went by pretty fast - we rolled it up and felt really good. On the final downhill off of Hankey we smoked past a few more guys in the techno-rocky single-track that had tightened up and rolled into the Finish Line together. The Dominion Ale tasted really nice. I improved on last years time by an hour and 18 minutes. Felt good the next day too. Next year will shoot to break 10 hours.

'Doah MTB Festival
Went to the festival in Stokesville held by the Shenandoah Mountain Bike Club for the first time this year. Got a sweet campsite set-up with the Moonstompers and immediately suited up for the 6 Pack Downhill Race. My first - so I didn't know really what to expect. We rode up Trimble Mtn. Trail and waited at the top to sign in for our start times. The wx was cool on top and I pulled on my jacket as we waited for folks to roll up. Mike Carpenter was running the show and seeded me fifth in the running order - I thought that was earlier than I should probably go - usually the fastest guys run first - there were 50+ riders there.

I had never seen the course - and was not really set-up for DH - but figured to have fun and be conservative. When my start came I hustled off trying to keep my tires on the trail and just be smooth with the brakes. As the trail wound down over the rocks and roots I found my flow and opened it up a bit more - getting pretty aggressive near the bottom. I took the whoops at the bottom with a lot of speed and got some applause and hoots from the Carnage Crowd assembled there. My time was 30 seconds slower than the fastest finisher - but proved to be the 8th fastest for the day - I was about 13th overall - three guys were tied for 1st and three more tied for 4th. I'll take it - no crashes!

Rest of the weekend included a battleball tournament that nite. Our team consisted of Joel Maynard, Craig Riddle and myself. We eliminated about 6 teams before finally succumbing in the semi-final to a team that eventually won the tournament - what a BLAST!

Next morning, Sully, Chenger, Cridder, Eric, Fedak and myself did a climb out of camp after breakfast up to Hankey Mountain than out Lookout - about 10 miles. Beautiful lookout there - the climbs were very stiff but worth it. After lunch Sully had to roll out to a wedding (poor guy) and Than arrived. After we got Than settled into camp it was time for another ride of about 25 miles. We rolled up the SM100 initial climb - out on Cookie - where I endo'd while trying to pressure Chenger (on a fancy 6" travel rig) doing a head auger into a big rock, smashing my helmet pretty good and leaving a nice contusion my left thigh. The ride went on and we hit the new Narrowback section before guessing at our route - no map - and finding Festival Trail to climb back up and back track along Cookie (where we ran into the Sue Haywood led Women's Ride). We continued back along Cookie as the sun got lower and made it to the downhill on Tillman Trail. Our arrival back in camp was just in time as there was almost no light left.

Saturday night's burritos were really good and followed up with a slide show. The observatory was open so I went over and got to see a nebula and a star cluster. What beautiful night, I spent about an hour after in the field looking up at the Milky Way and counted 9 falling stars before falling asleep, waking up and rolling into the tent.

Sunday morning we packed up our camp and Cridder shuttled Fedak, Thanimal, Chenger and myself up to Reddish Knob for a run down Chestnut and Grindstone. Jacob (the Trek/Gary Fisher Demo Dude) loaned me a GF Carbon Pro HiFi to test out on this very demanding ride. 5" of Fox plushness was exactly what I needed. I got it dialed in and the trail just flew on by. Very impressed with it's performance - climbing, downhilling through the rocks and loose gravelly and sandy corners. At 23.5 lbs - pretty tough to beat.

What a great weekend - lookin' forward to next year!

Rowdy Dawg this Sunday - lots to do to get ready for it - hoping for some rain to knock down the dust.