AsheVegas CX at Pisgah Brewery

The after race party that we didn't get to stay for because Papa & Beers were calling our names.




Several of us rolled over the mountain in Candy Van #1 Sunday morning to Black Mountain, N.C. for the final round of the small Asheville CX series. The turnouts have been huge except for the first one but the rest were huge freakin' successes. There had to be 1,000 people there Sunday, it was outrageous!

Here's my face of pain on the flat CX course. I used this race for an experiment. See the "flat" bars? Yes I robbed the Speedfox BMC's 10 speed dyna-sys drivetrain and installed it on the cross machine. I loved it but the 54 frame is too small for flat bars, this may work on the 56 frame I have though. On the 54 it cramped me up too much in the cockpit. That rough course beat my hands to death also, being cramped like that made it worse.

I wasn't planning on racing hard just a workout on the bike but after the first turn crash of 20+ riders, I avoided, it put me up front so I couldn't disrespect the gift I had been given. I pounded the pedals 'til I blew up and blow up I did. I do so much better starting out like a cold diesel and getting to "my" comfort zone rather than hammering off the front and waging battle like a cock-fight. Getting there 30 minutes before my race started and standing in the registration line for 15 minutes didn't help matters either. Oh well, I just do this for the fun factor!

Kim was there with Grace and Larry having a blast. Larry gave us all encouragement!


Jason is released and the wrist braces are off now, he's also back at work so don't get caught speeding.... His new team kit looks pretty sweet too!

This is what karma does to you when you heckle a fellow cyclist about installing flat bars on a CX bike..... That's right Dr. Seek. He called me sissy and all kinds of colorful adjectives heckling me while he was wondering around the course taking pics. On his final lap he snapped his chain in the lawn scape timbers and had to push to the pits (Karma). Upon arrival the only bike that was offered to him was Grace's SMALL cx bike. Having no shame he quickly hopped on and finished his race proudly! Going and coming pictures above and below.


D-Wayne, the king of cross, was tattooed with some Klingon stripes of dust through his helmet vents. The ground was hard as concrete and really dusty. It's nice to see him get to concentrate on his racing this year other than doing so much for the MSG series.

DWayne in action through one if the obstacles, no one ran through this . I was actually surprised that some 'no technical skills' roadie didn't dismount and run through this section. There were several that did crash after clearing the third one though. The first one would make them wobble, before they could recoup the second one would really get them squirrelly then after the third.....they ate it. I laughed so hard at some of them because it happened alot.



Some dude was wearing Jorts, ya know jean shorts? Chris, the announcer, was wearing this guy out during his race too. Jort guy was actually was doing pretty good holding his own. On the last lap he rolled around past me and I yelled " you got a nut hanging out"... he lost it and cracked up pretty hard at that comment. They were pretty short..... just sayin'. He was on a mountain bike too. There were several MTB's rocking the CX scene and also doing well on them.

Well that's about it for the Pisgah races. This week there's another installment of Farmhouse Gallery MSG racing. I think there's a bunch of us camping too should be a hoot!

Last night the ETSU Team had a fundraiser at Alpine Ski Center to raise funds for the team and the guys that are going to Nationals in a couple of weeks. We had almost 100 people show up it was a good night!

Later G.................................