EWS Adventure 2022

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
That his total race time... All stages, needs to add up to 20-25 min of race time.

Yeah, I get that. But why? Who decided his testicles were made of gold and needed to be appeased?

I mean as an outside observer it sounds somewhat absurd that 1 participant needs to be catered to. What gives?
 

Zaskar

Well-Known Member
Upper lift issue? There’s no lift for bikes to the top. That only runs during ski season.

The lower lift got struck by lightning earlier this year and was still running diesel as of a few weeks ago.
Gotcha. That makes more sense. We did that ride up once, once. Actually I jumped in a pickup with I don't know how many turns remaining.
 

muddybike

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Yeah, I get that. But why? Who decided his testicles were made of gold and needed to be appeased?

I mean as an outside observer it sounds somewhat absurd that 1 participant needs to be catered to. What gives?
It’s not the person in particular- he just happens to currently be the fastest guy riding these days. Ews has always had a time minimum for race duration. The qualifying races do as well. So as the top riders get faster in general as the sport evolves, the courses become harder.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
It’s not the person in particular- he just happens to currently be the fastest guy riding these days. Ews has always had a time minimum for race duration. The qualifying races do as well. So as the top riders get faster in general as the sport evolves, the courses become harder.

Got it. So when you beat him, it'll soon be called the Kristine Rule. Looking forward to that.
 

muddybike

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
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Breakfast at the farm. Then off to burke Mtn:

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Friday, today, is training day for everyone. The ews100 folks are riding stages 2-4 (lower Mtn) this morning while I go pre ride stage 5 - rude awakening to camptown. It rained pretty hard last night, so it’s a bit slick up top.
 

muddybike

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Rode the toll rd from the top of the lift. I clocked in at 46mins at a steady pace (and fresh legs) w one back stretching break. Water station at the scenic lookout and at the top, so I can carry way less on me tomorrow. I’ll be doing this climb 2x tomorrow and then 2x again on Sunday (at the end of the race) so I imagine that time will get stretched out quite a bit. Plus I’ll be pedalling the lower Mtn too both sat & sun, and we pedal the lower Mtn for each of the stages (no lift on sat or sun) so that’s another 20-25 mins per climb, I would guess. Whoo, going to be a lot of climbing.

Top Of the Mtn was still In The clouds- spooky!

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Stage 5 wasn’t as slippery as I expected- the rocks were surprisingly good but the occasional root was death. Had to skip some of the preferable high lines because of the roots up there- but overall a good, chill run w a few session spots. I wonder if mud will get tracked onto the rocks for the 100 riders this afternoon.

Hopefully it’ll be dry on Sunday.

I was soaking wet w sweat after that climb, my next training block isn’t for a couple hours and it’s 61degrees today, so I went back to the farmhouse, tossed my gear in the dryer and made myself a hot lunch. :)
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
What a day...

So for us people doing the 100 race, today we pre rode the whole course. It rained last night and its pretty cold and cloudy here so nothing was dry. Didnt find out until today but we did get to use the park lift for three of the 5 stages....The lift doesnt take you anywhere near the top of the stages, but it take about 600ft off of the climbs.....so pretty nice...However, when we got off the lift, they made us ride down the hill, then up this grass hike a bike.....hard to tell, but its REALLY steep, hard to even walk the last pitch.

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Waiting in line with @Meatball Mia

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The lift line was LONG...
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So we started with stage 2...its the lower J bar trail. Its a typical kingdom XC trail, 2 miles long...decent amount of pedaling on it, but flowy and fun.

Stage 3 is the waynes world trail, which is pretty steep at the start, few slippery chutes, but pretty fun. Then it goes into the black forest trail....which is a little flatter and super flowy.

Stage 4 was a little weird. The first minute or so of it was in the grass on the ski hill....This was interesting, like the steepest cross course ever....really slippery, off camber... But then into enchanted forest which is smooth and flow with some roots.

Made thru those stages, then we grabbed some more food and water and got ready for the toll road climbs....My plan was to take off my body armor, knee pads and such....pack them in my back pack and climb the toll road wearing a little less gear....wasnt terrible...Thankfully it was pretty cool today but also super humid...So from the lift to the top it took us about 45 min...this is 45 min like in your granny gear.

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Stage 5 (rude awakening)....so they basically just said go and like 100 people headed down this VERY sketchy trail....Its like a sea of steep, wet off camber roots....Sketchy as hell. Some of the spots you might want to session, but it was impossible bc there were people all over the place. After a short time we said F this and just kept riding. Not sure how I got thru that without crashing....however, I certainly didnt feel very fast. Pat said it was the hardest trail he has ever ridden and hes ridden way harder stuff than me, so??? It was certainly a challenge being wet and slick.

Back to the toll road for another hour of so of climbing with a water stop. It was certainly worse the second time, but not as bad as I thought.

Stage 5...Upper J bar....Pat had me lead in this stage. Once again they sent everyone off at once and the first hard spot was parking lot. This trail is probably harder than rude awakening, but its a little more my speed...steep, rocky, gnar...Conditions were better than rude awakening, but still pretty slick...Made it thru all the hard spots clean, but it was again a shit show.

In all it was an 8 hour day, about 4hrs moving. 20 miles and 6500 ft of climbing. Cant believe im doing this again tomorrow but no lift assist. This is without a doubt the craziest race course I have ever done...biggest climbs, crazy descents.

Me, Pat, Mike and Mia roll out and start our race around 1130 tomorrow.
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Well it's late and it's been a long ass day.... But me, pat, Mia and Mike all survived... I'll have to do a full blog post on this one... But that was the hardest race I have ever done, not even close. Kept going thru my head today how the bearscat was like a cruise around 6 mile compared to this. By the numbers...
19.2 miles, 6300 ft of climbing...
3hr 58 min moving time
My race time was 34 ish minutes which means I spent over 3hrs and 20 min climbing cat 2 and above climbs... On a 35 lbs bike wearing body armor/full face.... Exhausting is not the word.
Then we had to sprint down this stuff.... Watch the pros... It's like us but with the fast forward button depressed


So stoked that I made it thru this race and it one piece. I had 4 good stages and one I botched up. Slid on a root on rude awakening... Lost my chain and jacked up my handle bar... Tried riding it out and ended up crashing a couple more times... But the rest were as good as I think I could have done... Finished 5th in the 45+ class

@Meatball Mia was the only u21 female and they wouldn't let her race the Open Class.... but she would have been third in that one if they did let her which is super impressive...

In all it was a killer day, that was truly and epic race. The terrain, the stages, the climbing... Can't think of anything I have done that compares

OK no tomorrow all I have to do is watch @muddybike do what I did today
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