Alright, I think I'm Brecked out, but who knows, maybe some more Breck will come oozing out of my pores sometime in the next few days. And I better be Brecked out because it's time to get all stoked for The Pisgah Mountain Stage Race, which starts next Tuesday. I spoke to promoter Todd Branham on the phone last night and it was awesome, the guy got me completely amped to do this race. He used adjectives like "slow" and "hard" and "technical" repeatedly to describe the trails. There was some discussion of the "half-track" trails, singletrack so narrow that it seems un-rideable. There was a whole lot of talk about the differences between Breck and Pisgah. I know from my two Swank 65 experiences that western North Carolina's trails are much more similar to our trails here in the Boston-ish area.
Except with hills.
I mean, what the crap? Somehow the Pisgah race boasts MORE climbing per mile than Breck. I haven't done the math but it seems that way anyway. OK ya, you don't have to be Rooter to figure this one out: Breck has 37,000 feet of gain over 240 miles in six days; Pisgah has 40,000 feet over 175 miles in 5 days. AAH! Well, at least it's not at elevation. That was the only hard part about Breck right? No, not really. Once I'd acclimated, I'd be grinding up some awful climb going "yup, this would suck at sea level."
I really just came down here today to make excuses for why I wasn't going to be posting anything. Gotta head over to The Shop to finish getting the donation bikes ready for the kids.
Bye!
2 comments:
The elevation thing isn't surprising. The problem is that most of the climbs in Breck were easily 1, 2, or even 3K at a shot. I don't know anything about Pisgah, but when the climbs are shorter and more frequent the climbing adds up faster. For example, my old course back in the midwest was only 7 miles long but had 1,700 ft of climbing per lap....thought it only came in 200 foot intervals.
ughh... Did you read the belt buckle?
42,000ft of vert in 251miles in 6days.
while we're on math. My 51.9gear inches feels great now-a-days. A far cry from the 44.2 I used in Breck. Then again, I am 9,700ft lower in elevation.
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