Beefcakes Bike Blog

TSE Day 7 – the final day “I think we worked perty well together”, a quote straight from Cissy. Yeah. We finished. We’re bad. Oh yeah! 7 days! We made it. What an accomplishment. I feel great and I don’t want it to end. It was painful during the entire process but now I want it to continue. I want to have to wake early in the AM and hop on the bike on my sore arse and ride 40+ miles of difficult trails and spend 4 hours suffering. I want to do it again. What in my genetic make up makes me crave such suffering. Why do I enjoy punishing myself? What aspect of suffering gives me pleasure? Don’t know. Uncertain. I do know that I’m in Pennsylvania and they sell beer from the bar in 6 packs and 12 packs and I have a 12 pack of Pennsylvania brewed Yuengling sitting here beside me that probably won’t make it through the night (well at least 6 of them). I just returned from the bar (beer store) with said 12 pack which is extremely celebratory and now my wonderful woman is cooking macaroni and...

TSE Day 6 It was actually cold this morning as opposed to the 93 degree heat on Monday. The race start began about 4 miles from the race headquarters base camp. All racers left the base camp and did a slow ride to the start. The race director said “go” and we went. Cissy and I stayed on the wheels of our only competitors for the first hour and twenty minutes then they pulled away from us on a long downhill. We saw them at the end of the race. Only one of them had taken off their helmet, so we weren’t far behind. Actually, we were only 10 minutes behind…so not too shabby! The trails today were mostly rocks and some rocks and then a few more rocks. After the first trail of rocks, there were more rocks. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the rocks? The rocks were rideable though and it took fierce concentration to navigate the smoothest line. We started on a gravel road and quickly entered a forest service road which evolved into double track then single track and finally hike a bike. The h...

TSE - Day 5 Today was four short xc style races formatted in a rolling ride. All racers rolled out of the staging area at a slow pace until we got to the start then each group raced a short race to the next finish. After all the racers finished, we rode together to the next start and did it all again. Four little races in one large rolling group. Total miles were only 28 or so. It was a very relaxed stage and most of the lead riders sorta took it easy. Since the individual races were so short, most leaders didn't have to worry about losing much time in the overall standings. It was a fun format. Cissy and i did our best in the rocky terrain, passing a lot of people who obviously don't ride Pisgah or Pennsylvania often enough to scurry over the rocks quickly. Cissy saw a huge rattlesnake on the side of the gravel road in between two race stages. We started and finished at R. B. Winter State Park. It seemed like a nice place. Lake, beach, pavilions, camping sites etc. Not much mo...

TSE Hump Day – Day 4. It was day 4 of 7 today so only 3 stages remaining. Once again, as predicted, we gained on our sole competitors. Our course today consisted of Tsali like trails mostly on contour following the edge of Raystown Lake. We had two twenty ish mile laps to complete. Today we gained 6500’ in 42 miles. Yesterday we gained less but it hurt more because the climbs were continuous. Today we had 42 miles of fun rolling-dip-grade, side hill bench cut, machine made trails much similar in fashion to the trails at Dupont State Forest and that worn out place known as Tsali. This course made us smile. We laughed and had a lot of fun. The race started with a controlled start from a paved road at lakes edge. We had to pedal about ½ mile up an 8-10% grade then into the single track. Cissy and I started a little too hard and had to back up off of it for just a tad. We shortly got into a good rhythm and started to gain on who ever we saw ahead of us. There was only one aid station today...