2013 Snake Creek Moutain Bike Time Trials - Race#1

I asked my friend Dustin Mealor to tell you guys about his first of 3 Snake Creek Gap Races. This is a mountain bike time trial series. A race on the first Saturday of Jan/Feb/March that gives no consideration to weather, rising river water, or life threatening terrain. In other words it's a super cool experience. I have to this point never committed to it. And each year I regret it.
For the elite racers there's money to be had. But for everyone who completes all three races (the Trifecta) there's a sweet belt buckle for you. It makes me sick to think about missing it again so I'll turn this blog over the Dustin.

RACE #1 - by Dustin Mealor

The Snake Creek Gap Time Trial Series is not just any mountain bike race.  The Snake is a race that takes 34 miles of trail and crams in 4,000 ft of climbing, huge rocks littering a 1-2 mile portion of the trail, fast descents, a very wide and deep “creek crossing” and cold temperatures.  I’ve been racing mountain bikes for about two years now and this has been on my list since the beginning.  I was finally roped into doing it this year (through very little coercion from friends).  I’ll give a quick little story of how the day went.

We drove in the night before and planned to get up around 7AM so we could eat breakfast and be to the shuttle area ready to go around 8AM.  Once we got over to the shuttle area around 8:30AM (mountain biker time) we ended up waiting for around an hour just to make it on a shuttle to the start line.  Couple this with standing outside in spandex in 32 degree temperatures and it made for a long hour.

Once the shuttle arrived we headed off on about a 30 or so minute drive to the start line.  Mind you when we left in the shuttle the bike shuttle had yet to arrive for our bikes.  Once we got to the start line we had another 30 or so minutes to wait before the bike shuttle arrived.  This is not to say the race wasn’t run well.  I can imagine the logistics of this race being a nightmare.  There were 437 racers for goodness sakes!

Once my bike arrived my buddy and fellow faster-than-me cyclist Rob Butler were off.  Rob dropped me on the first area because I don’t know how to pull up my leg warmers well enough and had to stop.  After I fixed this problem I was off again through sloshy uphills from the recent rains.  When I say uphill I mean uphill.  I swear this course has 85% climbing and technical, 10% downhill and 5% flat.  It’s a tough course.

Screen print of Dustin's race.

The first part of the race was uneventful minus me nailing the “creek crossing” hard enough to soak myself from the waist down.  It was about 37 degrees probably by then so I didn’t freeze quite as bad.  I passed people here and there and honestly didn’t have any mishaps or anything.  My bike got gunked up and started shifting bad but that’s to be expected when you’re racing in the mud.

Once I crossed the road to start the second 17 miles (there’s a 17 mile option that starts from here) I met a girl named Casey that tore me up.  I’ll be honest when I say I’ve never ridden with a girl or lady that could handle a bike like this girl.  I rode with her for probably the next 8-10 miles and she pushed me.  She would drop me on the twisty and downhills and I would catch her on the uphills and motor sections.

After losing touch with my new friend when she stopped at the aide station for a banana I rode the rest of the race with a friend/acquaintance named Brian DeLoughy.  I stayed with him for a while but he finally dropped me and I had the rock garden section followed by the downhill to the finish.  I rode quite a bit of the rock garden that I’ve never made it over before but still had to walk quite a bit.  I caught up to Brian later yelling in pain from a cramp in his calve that I could visibly see locking up from behind (ouch). 

The rest was boring.  I went downhill really fast on my mountain bike.  The top speed on the descent was 44.1mph, which honestly is a bit scary on a mtb!  I finished the day at 3:48 which put me in 6^th place for the series.  A great finish to a great weekend!

Here's a cool VIDEO!

Dustin Mealor

Thank you Dustin for sharing your experience. Now can you people see why I want to do this series!

I am looking forward to the Chainbuster Series this year as well. I hear it's bigger and better than ever with some super cool sponsors and BIG prizes!

Here's a local racing EXCLUSIVE - New North Georgia Cycling team Prima Tappa Cycling Club in cooperation with Dingo Race Productions will be hosting a downtown Crit on Saturday July 13th in Flowery Branch!! Oh yeah! Put that on your calendar and smoke it!

Shout out to my Triathlon friends!!!

Also in the planning for April 2014 is a HALF IRON MAN in Hall County presented by FCA Endurance! More on that and it's lead up training weekends soon.

Check back on my blog home page often this year for the lastest race and ride information.

Thanks for reading!

Chad Hayes