Black Bear Rampage

On 11 Sep I competed in the Black Bear Rampage, held on the Tanasi trail system and starting at the Ocoee whitewater center near Copperhill Tn.

I hadn't planned on racing this one, but after taking Labor Day weekend off from racing and with fantastic weather forecast, and knowing some of my good racing friends were going, I signed up. This is one of my favorite trail systems to ride/race so win or lose I hoped to have fun on the 40 mile course. Arriving at the parking lot at 7:45 with my good friend Trey Woodall I had plenty of warmup and visiting time...maybe too much with 49 degree temps! We lined up to do a mass start with the pros, but for some reason they (all four of them) were sent off first, followed 2 minutes later by the singlespeeders, and 3 minutes later by we experts. The race started with about 3 miles of rolling-climbing pavement, and we caught the singlespeeders before even turning onto the singletrack. Four of us had split from the pack of about 20 experts by then. I set the pace for the about first 20 minutes of trail before letting two of the guys come around in some rougher descent. Perry Thomas was doing a great job leading over the rocky rough but fast Copper rd section when he suddenly crashed into the trees...ok, but shook up. Erik Carlson then got a little gap on me, but he took a wrong turn...too far to hear me yell and I don't know why the course marshals didn't stop him. That left Travis Fowler and me out front. Travis and I would ride with eachother the whole race, pretty much marking each other while keeping the pace high enough to hold any chasers at bay (at least we hoped). We passed one of the pros and the leading singlespeeder on our way. After completing the last big climb up Boyd gap to the last section of rolling singletrack Travis' support guy offered him a drink bottle, which he declined. I asked "can I have it?" and Travis said "sure"....I think that's really cool that Travis, knowing we'd be battling for 1st, would do that. That's a style that seems very common in mountain bike racing too. After a bear sighting--very appropriate given the race name--we were still nose-to-tail approaching the finish. The course was altered slightly, so we both had to guess where it would be, but coming on to a gravel doubletrack we both guessed it was near and went full sprint side by side. I had just enough punch left in my legs to beat him by about 3 feet for first place in 3hrs 8 minutes. It was my second win in as many races at BBR, so I guess I'll put it on the schedule for next year!