A quick note before a full day of racing. Yesterday I started the 2014 Transylvania Epic 7 day mountain bike stage race. Staying here at seven springs campground, well, can't really call it a campground since we are in a cabin with SATELLITE TV, so we've termed in an RV "resort". We are settled into a great spot with room for bike wash and a great covered porch to chill out on. Best of all we are about 3/4 mile uphill from the race venue, so it's easy to get to the start of the races every day.
Yesterday we rode the prologue. Unlike any prologue in the Tour de France where they are on the bike for a whopping 6 minutes, this was a 15 mile sampler of exactly what PA trail riding will be like. Needless to say, it was no cake walk. We hit some amazing trail right off the bat, and we're out in the woods for over an hour.
Coming into the race I had no idea what to expect with a stage race. It's early in The season and I haven't done a ton of long rides, so being competitive in the overall classification wasn't high on my expectations. The big goal for this week really is survival. Given all of that, they are doing an 'east coast rocks' competition within the race where riders compete on timed sections of single track that consist of technical trail riding that is t necessarily a downhill competition.
Overall yesterday's prologue went as I had expected. I finished about 10 minutes back of Jeremiah bishop who is in the race lead. Unfortunately there were 18 guys in between us, so I'm currently pretty far down in the general classification. But that is after just one day of racing 15 miles- the hour long events are definitely not my strong suit. I am, however, currently sitting in 5th in the east coast rocks competition, so that might be something to continue to shoot for throughout the week.
Today's stage is a long one. We will do 43 miles with close to 6000 feet of climbing. I'll just have to see how I recovered from the prologue effort yesterday and try to keep in mind at I've still got 5 days of racing to go.
More to come this afternoon...
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