It's hard to dance with the devil on your back

Bikes with motors are rad

When I got back from Utah I went through what has become my typical transition phase from West coast to East coast.  I view the east coast as dirty and claustrophic.   I tolerate it on an every day basis but when I can escape from it for even just a short period, the transition back to east coast living is difficult for me.  I knew it was going to happen so I had planned the following weekend in the woods with my bestest girl friend.   We headed to the State College, PA area to pre-ride 2 of the longest stages of The Transylvania Epic, a race we are both doing end of May 2013.  She did a blog write up of our trip, I couldn't wrap my head around doing one at the time.  Too much was going on in my head that weekend to keep my thoughts centered.  Now I can write about it.   We had 2 gorgeous days of mountain bike riding AND I got to learn how to ride a moto bike.  I loved it and it won't be my last time riding a bike with a motor.  Her weekend pics are here.  I'm fairly certain attempting to do TSE on a single speed is going to be the death of me.  In my classic fashion, what's the point of doing something if it's easy?  2 things happened that weekend that stick out in my mind.

gorgeous claustrophic single track

1 - On day 1 after riding fire roads for a while we hit the most beautiful single track I've seen in a while.   It was over grown tight classic PA single track.  It brought back the east coast claustrophia feeling I was trying to escape so much on that weekend, but the beauty of it was just too much to dislike.  I came around a tight turn, my front wheel hit a rock and I went down.   It wasn't the hardest fall I've had, but it was enough to shake my confidence.  I couldn't let this happen.   Not when I had a full weekend of rocky single track riding ahead of me.   I needed to be fully confident in my skills and on my game to tackle these trails.   And I quickly found myself on the ground defeated by 1 random rock in the beginning of our ride.  I needed to get it together.  As I gathered myself and my bike the most perfect song came on my ipod, or at least I deemed it the most perfect song.

"Regrets collect like old friends, here to relive your darkest moments. I like to keep my issues drawn.
It's always darkest before the dawn. And I've been a fool and I've been blind. I can never leave the past behind. I can see no way, I can see no way. I'm always dragging that horse around. But it's always darkest before the dawn. Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out. And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back. So shake him off."  -Florence & The Machine, Shake it Out

Any time I crash, I carry that demon around for the rest of the ride.  Always.  With 37 miles of tech riding ahead of me, I had to shake this out.   I had no choice.   Enter the mental game.  My skills were no less than they were before I wrecked.  My mind was weak.   I had to learn right now, at this point, how to shake it out.   I will wreck at TSE, there's no doubt about it.   But I needed to learn how to successfully, shake it out.   It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.  He needed to be gone.  In a very short time we hit a rock garden, I quickly picked a line and went for it.  I  didn't clear the whole thing, but I over came the demons and gave it a solid try.   I walked to the end of the rock garden and got back on my bike.   Ready for the next one, which came before my nervousness subsided.    I cleared the next rock garden and the next one.  Just like that, my confidence was back and the devil was gone.  I was dancing again and it felt great.  The rest of the ride was fabulous and the stage that we did that day was easily ranked as what would be my favorite of the whole race.  They don't call it the Queen Stage for nothing I suppose.

2- On our second day of riding we rode the Coopers Gap stage.  The day before we ran into some guys from NMBA and told them we were riding Coopers Gap the next day.  They said Coopers Gap would be smoother trails than we were riding that day.  My legs were beat when I woke up that morning and I was reluctant to believe there were trails in that area that could be considered smooth.  I came to find the hard way that their advice was bullshit.  The Coopers Gap stage was hard.  Granted it's Fall and trails are covered in thick leaves.  Underneath those leaves was nothing close to being considered smooth, at least not in my experience of smooth trails.  It may be relative.   Angie and I rode with Will that day who has done that stage and I felt a little safer having him with us.    As we start the ride he said our first climb was up Stillhouse.   I immediately hated my life.   I did the Wilderness 101 last year and the climb up Stillhouse was the death of my shattered body.   He said we were climbing up the back of Stillhouse and it wasn't as bad as the front part that was in the W101.  He was correct.  The climb up Stillhouse wasn't bad and the decent down the front side of Stillhouse that I climbed in the W101 brought back horrid memories.  I was glad to be descending it that day.  We popped out onto a paved road and rolled through the underpass that was a checkpoint in the W101.  Shortly we came to the bottom of No Name trail.  My favorite descent in all of the W101.  Only today, we were climbing up it.  I laughed out loud and told Angie she was in for a real treat.   In my opinion, No Name trail is a down hill trail. There's no other way to describe it.  No one goes UP No Name.  No one.  However, everyone that does the TSE apparently does, indeed, go up it. Will and I were on single speeds.   We settled in for a LONG hike a bike.  Angie rode as much as she could on her geared bike.  Will and I hiked and bitched the whole way up it.   We finally got to the top and my legs were already cramping.   I was really looking forward to the "smoother" trails to come. We were again in the beginning of our ride that day and I was already spent.  The next 15 miles shelled out some steep fire road climbs, some gnarly single track, and some confusion as to which direction to go.  It was a chilly day and Will said we would have some stream crossings.   I did not want to get my feet wet.   We came to a couple and I chose to safely walk them.   We hit the third one and Angie cleared it so I went for it.   My front wheel sunk in a hole and I had to put a foot down.   ugh.  I could feel the demons creeping again.  The frustration with myself was mounting.   The next section of single track was gnarly climbing.  Will and Angie were far ahead of me.  I had nothing left to try to close the gap.   I popped out of the single track onto the road where they were waiting for me.   As soon as I got there they took off into the next section of single track.   I couldn't.  I was shelled at this point.  I unclipped, sat on my top tube, and put my head in my hands.   I didn't even have to look up.  I got a sense that Angie had stopped to wait for me.    She's such a good friend and even though her back was to me as she entered the single track, she got a sense that I was in trouble and she stopped.  When I finally looked up I saw her and Will and the top of the steep single track section talking.   Not making an issue out of my shelled state.  Just talking.   I thought of the day prior.   I've got another devil on my back and it's going to be hard for me to dance my way to the end of this stage.   I've got to shake it off.   I clipped in and met up with them.  I asked Will how far we were from the car.   His response was not promising.    It was time to shake the devil off.    We started riding again and again I found myself in the mental game.  Yes, my legs were completely shelled.  Of every race I've ever done, no matter the length, my legs have never hurt so bad as they did at that moment.  It felt like every muscle fiber in my legs were ripping apart.  We were about 10 miles from the car with a 7 straight miles of climbing with in those 10.   Nothing to do but shake it out and rally.  My only hope was that the gnarly single track would be limited and that the 7 mile climb was on fire roads.    We finished out that section of single track which I suffered through and we hit fire roads.  The last 7 miles to the car WAS all fire road climbing and I could not have been more thankful.  I can climb fire roads all day.  I've done the Cohutta 100.  That's proof that I indeed, can climb fire roads all day.   We finally got back to the car!

My legs were trashed at the start of the day.   What happened between the start of the ride and the end of the ride was so hard.  I ran through a ton of emotions and toughed it through one of the hardest days I've had on a bike. 

I shook the devil off, two days in a row. 

I can climb all day...on fire roads

That weekend we covered 80 gnarly miles and 9500 ft of ascent.  It doesn't sound like much, but the TSE stages are no joke. 

Still at this point I have no idea how I'm going to finish the Transylvania Epic on my single speed.   I DO know that it's going to be a requirement for me to learn how to shake the devil off my back so I can dance my way to the finish line each day.