Trans-Sylvania Epic - Stage 4

State College, PA
Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic Sunday May 30, 2010
by: Joseph Castle

TSE Stage 4 - Raystown Lake

I was waiting for this stage to start since the beginning of the race.  Raystown features over 20 miles of smooth, machine cut, single track.  It makes for some really fast riding with speeds up to 15mph.  For me, my speed started around 11mph where I was passing people continuously for the first 10 miles. I managed to catch people that I couldn’t catch in the previous days and I attributed this to the training camp a couple weeks ago.  The instruction I was provided at the training camp paid off very well today.  I even managed to catch-up to the person that was coaching me a couple weeks ago, only to see him slip away moments later.  I guess he didn’t like the fact that I caught him.

The race started in a short but steep long hill where I practiced moments before we started the race. I took off at the beginning like a single speeder and managed to keep up with some of the fast people to pass some of them on the trail.  Then, I caught up to the guy coaching me a couple weeks ago who was riding with his wife on a tandem.  We joked that racers figure out where they are in the race based on where the tandem is located.  I keep trying to beat the tandem only so I can give the riders a hard time since they are friends, but I usually can’t get them.  The guy driving is a 2 time national 24hr solo champion and a good person so I like to give him a hard time when I pass him.

One person did manage to crash but was okay.  Last week, the annual DirtRag Dirtfest was in Raystown and one person was HeliFlight out while two others went to the hospitcal.  It was nice to see that everyone managed to be smart while riding. As the race went on, I noticed that I began to get tired although I mashed most of the hills in my mid-ring.  It was sad to see some of the better climbers pass me on the hills that I had passed earlier in the race on the downhills.  It was a good day but the race is now starting to wear on me.

I made it over hump day with three days left.  The total distance of each day is getting shorter with today being 31 miles, tomorrow being 30 miles, Friday being 25 miles, and Saturday being 20 miles.  Each of the remaining days feature a descent amount of technical riding with mostly rocks but at least the overall mileage is going down.  It is easy to see that everyone is tired.