TSE Stages 1-3 for your viewing pleasure

Yes, it was piss poor timing to end a contest on the very day that I returned to blogging after a seven day stage race. After all this is "Bad Idea Racing", so if you were expecting something better you can, in the words of Dave "Fourth Place" Cormier, "suck it". I am going to go against my better judgment and write about each stage in chronological order even though I would rather just jump to the most awesome stage in stage racing history (the last stage) and just get to the others at a later date.

Stupid chronology making sense and shit.

The first stage of the Trans Sylvania Epic was a short prologue near the camp where we were staying. Short? Like Jedediah Bisquick did it in 35:14... that's how short. We human beings did it in a time much closer to 40-45 minutes. It was a fine example of things to come over the next six days with gravel, rocky singletrack, and some beat down fisherman's trails. I ended up third in the single speed category, @ a minute back from Greg Martin and @ 30 seconds behind Doug Jenne. Not too "meh" of a first day.

I had to check Greg's temperature on the podium since all the girls in the Eagle Lodge said he was looking hot.

As far as my quest for "the complete and utter domination of the cycling industry and media types" went I was 15 seconds down on FitChick, @ four minutes back on Cush, but I totally crusched Rebecca Rusch by 40 seconds putting me ahead of her in the staring contest.

Of the three other single speeders Dave "Fourth Place" Cormier, who might be strong enough to knock me off the podium, got lost for the first of many times throughout the week and came in behind me, Peter was not a threat, and the other was just a girl, but a girl who could destroy an Easton freehub with her massive torque, and a Canadian girl at that which makes her equal to 1.5 Dave Cormiers.

The second day was promised to be a real MF'er. Forty something miles, three major climbs, hot conditions, rocky trails... a hard day in the PA woods. Greg, Doug, and I went back and forth all day until the trail turned down and I couldn't keep up with their handling skills, squishy forks, and fat asses.

This is how I felt trying to keep up with them:

This is how I looked:

photo cred: Cylingnews.com
Photo: © A.E Landes Photography

Garth Prosser and I both described the day in a similar manner:

"It was like being gang raped in a prison."

Racing head to head for over four hours was hard. Doug won and put an additional 2.5 minutes on me with Greg finishing second a measly 20 seconds ahead of me. If this shit was going to keep up it was going to make for a long week. The only good news was that I put a decent amount of time on FitChick, Cush, and Rebecca. Take your victories wherever you can find them.

From left to right; Me looking resplendent in my "hunting shorts", Doug just being plain creepy as a winner, and Greg not being very "single speedy" wearing compression tights.

I knew day three would not go well for me just looking at the profile and description. It would be a relatively flat stage over parts of the Wilderness 101 course. Flat and single speed go together like peas and flaming weasels... they just don't. I decided that the racing action in the single speed class was going to be more like a three way fight to the death using Nerf bats for weapons. No one would actually die as a result of a delivered blow, and we were more likely to drop dead from futile exhaustion.

I attacked a mile or so into the stage. This was the end result of my early attack:

Knowing that Doug and Greg would outpower me on the flats and out coast me on the slightly graded gravel descents I thought I would hang it out there every chance I got. I washed out in a gravel turn, took my dose of road rash (or as I like to call it, "rad rash"), and was back up on the bike just as they came by me. I continued to chase Greg, but he got away from me, and when I tried to attack Doug on the early climbs he would just coast by me on the following descents laughing manically as he passed by.

After being dropped by Greg and Doug I was alone in my sad little world. I had not looked the map over very well, and when I thought we had nothing but fireroads left I was rudely awakened by some brutally soaked rocks and spongy saturated climbs.

photo cred: Cylingnews.com
Photo: © A.E Landes Photography

Yes, that is snot hanging from my nose, and yes they posted it on cyclingnews.com with the following tagline:

Rich Dillen (Team Dickey) has a hard time keeping his brains in the rain.

Double awesome. I was pretty miserable on day three ALL DAY LONG. I lost massive amounts of time to Greg, three more minutes to Doug, and the girls (Rebecca and FitChick) put the wood to me. Lucky for me Cush continued his downward slide and had an equally bad day finishing @ 17 minutes behind me.

We were all surprised to see that "someone" shit in Greg's prize bag.

With Doug and Greg coming on strong, my leg torn to shreds, the female targets starting to ramp things up, and Cush falling faster than BP stock it was time to start working the post race recovery drinks a little harder. The rest of the single speed field was less of a concern since Dave managed to get lost again (this time much more loster than the last time), the girl was still a girl and Peter was still not a threat.

Stage four and more tomorrow.

All non-professional type images courtesy of Peter "My worst sponsor" Keiller.