Old Fashioned Butt-WISPing

By: Jordan

The look of happiness

As a general rule of thumb, I leave decisions to race epic mountain bike races in the rain and mud until the last minute.  This past weekend was no exception, making the decision to gear up for a trip to WISP mountain in western Maryland a day prior to the race.  Helping to nudge my decision to go in the 'yes' column was my buddy Weaver, who offered to drive, leaving me some extra time to relax in the passenger seat for once.  It was splendid!

The race itself was a blur of fast doubletrack descents and climbs, mixed with swooping, muddy, fun singletrack.  First-lap rain turned to mid-race sun and ended in last-lap peanut butter.  The ever-changing course conditions left us on our toes all day and made for some interesting mechanical situations.  But who doesn't love standing off course playing with their bike mid-race?!  Thanks to our fancy-schmancy new SRAM XX1 drivetrains though, I experienced little problems in the shifting department.  BAM, take that mud!  Also, my choice to role with the Anthem X Advanced 29 over my XTC hardtail proved fruitful over a 31+ mile course.

Through the attrition and mud, I emerged in second place, feeling lucky just to have made it through.  Yay me!  The courses at WISP are as challenging as they get, and I would definitely recommend heading out for the next one.  Now for a nap!

NUE #3 Wildcat 100

This being my first 100 mile MTB race I have to say that I was a different type of nervous. Instead of feeling nervous about call ups, hole shots and positions it was "can I finish?" "How long will it take me?" "What the heck am I going to EAT?!" But everything you think is going to happen never does in a race and there is never any need to be nervous, its just wasted energy. So I prepared the best I could for the race by eating well the few days before, giving my bike the once over and heading to bed early the night before like a proper pro should. The morning of the race was a wet one. The weather calling for showers all day and a high temp in the mid 60's was going to make an already hard race even harder with epic conditions of mud and my body trying to maintain some level of normal body temperature. The start was pretty chill with a semi neutral roll out the Williams lake where we rode through the famous cave and rocky single track. Then it was onto a mix of fire road, pavement, single track for the last 95 miles. Justin Lindine and I had a pretty good gap on the rest of the field and kept the pace up for the first 10 miles until a little wrong turn let the group behind catch up. I hung one with my Single Speed until Glory Hill climb mile 20ish... where my 32-16 gearing was to stiff of a gear to keep up so I paced myself up the climb and caught back on when things leveled off. By that time Justin and Christian Tanguy had taken off and I was left to draft the top 5 geared guys for the rest of the day. At no point during the 100 miles of mud, rocks and mixed emotions did I think about quieting. that's just not an option. I did a great job of pacing and keeping my head space right to finish 1st in my Class (Single Speed Men) at 7hrs 30min and 3rd overall just 10 min behind the 2nd place Pro Justin Lindine and inside 30min of Christian Favata. I have to say I don't know what I was thinking but now that its all over with I can say that I had a blast and I would do it all over again...Maybe...

~S

A Way Way to fast Wawaywanda H2H



What a great weekend of racing!! Put on my big boy pants and grabbed my first and hopefully not last WIN of the season. And yes I was racing on a single speed but this bike is special and worked great for the ubur rocky track... National Championship race bike?...




The race start was difficult with a flat 1.5 road start...needless to say I was spun out with my 32-17 gear ratio! But luckily I was able to hang on the back just long enough to hit the first dirt section of the track and make up positions and catch the really fast Christian Favata. We had a good dual going until he had to stop and put air in a small puncture in his tire. I kept the pressure on going into the 2nd 8 mile lap and never looked back... kept it smooth and fast to take the first win of the season with a time of 1hr 27min.


Thanks for the great course and people of the H2H race series and all the Sponsors of Giant Mid- Atlantic!!



Matt Miller says I look Buff!!

~S