Wilderness 101 - The Independent Fabrication/Team Seagal Pain Train Comes to Town

Well sports fans it is that time of the year when the planets align, the clouds clear and the trails run fast in furious in Coburn, PA.....yes the Wilderness 101. In a sado-masochistic way this is without a doubt my favorite race of the year. It mainly has to do with the fact that the W101 is the first mtb race I entered and somehow managed to finish. After swearing never to set foot again in Coburn here I am stepping up to the line for the 6th straight time.

Again I was joined by a couple of proper English gentlemen, Wayne and Footie, both veterans of the race and always looking for a reason to tip a couple of beers. The antics didn't take long and leaving NYC at the optimal time of 4pm on a Friday ensured that Wayne & Footie wouldn't be here for the better part of 7 hours. The downside to all of this - when they did finally arrive at 11pm I was awaken from a solid sleep and eventually forced to run for the vial of Ambien so I could manage a paltry 4 hours of sleep before the race.

Race day dawns with Chris Scott plying the campground with subtle ringing of the Race Gong. After a shortened night of sleep nothing is more satisfying then Footie's antics on race morning. Last year it was the attempt to convert to tubeless and this year there was nothing quite like watching Footie attempt to get a 29er tire to stay on a 26" rim, and all of this in the 15 minutes before the start!

Race day showed early signs of ideal weather and a the crack of 7am we were off and riding behind the lead cycles with the pain train revving up to full speed. Wayne, Footie and I held together for the first climb with Footie showing signs of brilliance (and his skills at wrist snapping) as he shot ahead on the climbs and in true old school fashion stopped on the road side for a quick menthol. Once we crested the first climb it was goodbye Footie and hello pain train as the pace quickened and we took advantage of the rolling fire roads. A couple of dropped chains later and Wayne was off the back leaving each of us to suffer in our own world of delusion and pain.

Grinding out mile after mile and focusing on the road ahead for mile after mile of climbing/wrist snapping, I made it to the 73 mile mark with only a few scrapes from going over the bars before I had the pleasure of meeting my potential maker -

On the climb up Sand Mountain Road I held to the right and led the group up the packed track on that side. You can imagine what it was like to take a pedal stroke and hear the rattle of the snake, look down and see a coiled rattler have the option to a)strike at the nearest ankle and end my race (or life) or b) retreat to the woods. Lucky for me option b was the more appealing choice on this day. Needless to say the center of the trail offered the best path for the rest of the race.

The final 20 miles saw a monumental battle between my legs and the demons in my head and you can be assured that the demons put up one hell of a fight before they finally ran out of hard riding and were suppressed for another year.

Crossing the finish line I realized that this is the only thing that could hurt more then a session with a dominatrix and a cat-o-nine tails. Was it worth it - for second place in masters - hell yes and I will see you next year.

The following morning, looking to combat the effects of burning 10,000+ calories, way too many beers and shots of mezcal it was off to the local diner for the "Delicious Dozen" or in our case the Delicious 36 after ordering 3 of these. Yes we did manage to finish almost everything on the table and without running to the bathroom to hurl! And one last positive note, I managed to raise a few thousand dollars for ALS/TDI. Amazing how much people will pay to see you suffer.

Team Seagal East Coast Syndicate Recruits First Team Member

Team Seagal's East Coast Syndicate is proud to welcome it's newest and first member, who will be know only by the name Footie - his favorite English sporting past time. Footie is a real trooper, brought into endurance racing on a whim, I made sure to give him a good wrist snapping his first time out. Wiser to the ways and having spent hours at the dojo, Footie elected to go to his second 100 miler on a full rigid single speed and proceeded to throw down a very respectable time.

Unsure what to make of this protege, rumor had it that Steven Seagal formed a special task force to study the ancestry of Footie's family. Well it has been confirmed that during the reign of Henry the VIII there was a tryst with one of the servants and the offspring yielded the British police officer that had to give up his bike and ride mass transit due to poor cycling skills.

Even more shocking was the revelation that this officer had younger brother that turns out to be none other then Footie. Suspicions were confirmed when this rare photo was discovered of Footie trying to fit a tire right before the start of the Wilderness 101.

Perhaps he was confused over the metric system but we had a great laugh watching this video of Footie trying to put a 29" tire on a 26" rim. It doesn't get any better then this 15 minutes before the start. It should be noted that Footie went out and snapped a lot of wrists in this one!

Welcome aboard mate.

And when it was all over we celebrated with numerous bottles of beer, flasks of mezcal and an offering of Chinese herbs and the Tibetian Gogi in hopes that our fallen brother Wayne would return from the hospital with his arm intact, which he did with 6 stitches.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

What else is there in store for the season? A crash in the first race (the cuts and bruising taking more then a month to heal), nothing but mud and a good time thanks to Team Seagal in the second and now just a week before the W 101 a couple of bites on the elbow from a spider. Well there is substantial swelling, what looks like a golf ball sticking out on the tip of my elbow and a lot of tenderness and pain whenever anything touches it and yes enough heat for Al Gore to declare my elbow a contributor to global warming. 

Cape Epic Bound

Well once just wasn't enough so I entered the 2009 Absa Cape Epic lottery and wouldn't you know it - I have a winning ticket, so off to South Africa in March for another go on the single speed against Dr. Evil, only this time I will allow myself the pleasure of a front suspension fork. 

Stick versus Derailleur or Suddenly Single

It was a great 8 days of vacation, lots of time to relax, work on the house and of course get in a lot of awesome riding, whether it was on the road or on the trails. The last day was planned for a great 5o mile ride through the trails of Stewart State Forest (home of the Dark Horse 40) which are characterized by fast flowing single track and every weekend more new single track having been cut by the motocross bikes.

Well all started out great, hitting the usual trails and cranking out some great miles.  Then came the new trails, the pace easing as we wound our way through the woods. Suddenly, faster then a cobra can strike, there was a crack of a branch, the locking up of the cranks and a horrible sound of metal tangling in the spokes of some beautiful Industry Nine wheels!!! My stomach turned as I dismounted, looked down and saw this horrible sight -

Having always intended to race this bike as a single speed, once the NUE Series is over, it was built with Paragon sliders so the option for on the fly conversion to single speed was available. The only requirement was to remove the slider, use a couple of rocks to bash it back into shape so that I could put the wheel back on and remove a section of chain - then I could finish off the ride and in the spirit of Team Seagal, snapping the wrists of my companions!

Well the damage was a bit more then we could repair on the fly and with gears rubbing against the bent slider it was all I could do to get it back to the car and call it a day on the trails. The upside to all of this was two fold - First "Beth" finally has officially become a Team Seagal bike, wearing the colors and ready to snap some wrists at the Baja Epic.

Second, the real Beth and I broke out the kayaks and headed to the roaring rapids of the Wall Kill River. Recalling the trials and tribulations of Powell as he explored the Grand Canyon we were able to put a new rating scale in place for rapids. Rapids are rated for how many times you have to either push with the paddle or simply get out and walk across the rocks since the river was so low. Well we hit several class 20+ rapids and even had to portage across one section. Of course we made sure never to spill the beer!