Cruisin’

Last night I happened to meet up with Eric (he has some pics up from last night), Mike and Wode out at Dupont. We rocked the Corn Mill Shoals area of the park. This was our route:

Corn Mill Shoals ---> Little River ---> Backside Cedar Rock ---> Big Rock ---> Corn Mill Shoals ---> Burnt Mountain ---> Corn Mill Shoals ---> Longside ---> Twixt ---> Rock Quarry Road ---> ???? Ridge ---> Milicai ---> Wilikie

Gosh that is a lot of trails in two hours. I know I got some of the names wrong on the last few and I don’t feel like looking them up so there you go.

Eric really pushed me to try harder than I normally would on the Cedar Rock climb. Neither of us made it all the way to the top. We had to push some. That sucker is steep in spots though. It will make your heart rate shoot through the roof.

As we came to the top of Cedar the sun was set and her ray’s were still setting the night a glow. It was a pretty surreal scene. We started cruising down Big Rock and WTF my lights went out. Holy crap! I messed around with them for a minute and boom we have light again. SWEET! At this point, I was not really feeling like bombing the downhill with malfunctioning lights so Mike and Eric took off.

Next up was the climb up Burnt Mountain. This trail is by far one of the best in Dupont. It starts with some fast rolling single track; then it quickly turns into a slightly technical hellishly steep climb to eventually level off. Eric was following me and I had it in my mind that if we could just power through the first steep section it would all be gravy after that. I had a really nice line kicking up the steep section and we got to the last steep rise. I told Eric “Just one more kicker and we are done.” We pushed it hard and then cruised to the top.

Again Mike and Eric led the way on the slightly insane (at night) downhill. Apparently Wode ate some dirt on the way down but he said it was tasty.

Next up was some single track taking us to the other side of Cascade Lake road. Again Eric and I killed it on the uphill and popped out on the road before I even knew it was coming up. We had lost Wode and Mike so I went back to find them. In our excitement Eric and I made one turn that they didn’t see. Sorry guys! They quickly figured it out.

Onto the top of the Rock Quarry, the stars were out and we could clearly see the Milky Way showing off her glory. I know my way around in this area but I don’t have all the trail names memorized and I can’t picture every trailhead in my mind like I can in the rest of the park. So after a fun technical downhill that apparently threw Mike into some bushes while Eric and I rocked out the fully ridges beautifully we took a wrong turn. All it did was add an extra couple miles though. Turn around and rock it back to the car. What a great night!

The SWANK results came out today. I will paste what was in the email:

Greetings all,
The 2006 Swank 65 proved to be one of the hardest yet, with Farlow Gap included for only the third time in eight years. Racers were crippled by the first loop and Farlow didn't even make an appearance until the third. This route in Pisgah Forest allowed for one of the most remote back country mountain bike races in the area! Over 90 people registered, 79 raced and only 61 finished! With a course distance of actually 46 miles! Ha Ha! After six hours of racing, racers who had not yet reached the entrance of Cove Creek Campground were directed back into the campground for an alternate finish. Any racer past the campground entrance went for the full 46 mile finish. The times recorded are only those for the racers who finished the full 46 mile race. Other racers are listed in the order in which they finished after the true finishers. Race results are attached in a word doc.

Kristin Elliott's pictures from the race will be available beginning Saturday, November 11, 2006 at the following web address
http://e-designme.com/SwankGallery.html.
Swanks to everyone that came out to the 8th Annual Swank 65!
Todd

So my results you ask?

31 Jonathon LaRoy 6:43:30

Not bad for my first SS race huh? That ranks pretty high on my list of results. I am happy. I think I might have even done a little better than 31st. I think some people might have not told the timer at the end that they came up the road instead of officially finishing. If this is true you should email Todd and let him know. Just speculation really and it doesn’t really matter because I am pleased.