As a group, we the people of Faster Mustache: Charlotte decided to have a team retreat at the Stokesville Lodge in Virginia. I'd been lobbying for a couple years for this and was much stoked that we were finally headed there. I've done so many Shenandoah 100 races and Tour de Burg suffer fests in the area, but I was really looking forward to a more relaxing weekend of riding and hanging.
Colin and I roll in and only Lee and Courtney are already there. Courtney was the only one smart enough to post in our Facebook group and ask what time everyone was going to arrive.
12:00
12:30
1:30
2:ish
etc.
So those of us that are there around noon wait for some of the 1:somethings to arrive and we head out knowing that if we keep waiting, we'll just keep on waiting and waiting for more and more arrivals.
BC, Colin, Lee and I leave outta the lodge and ride to the bottom of Wolf. Those of us who had been to the area before were more than aware that all the rivers on the way in were dramatically higher than we'd ever seen. As we ride out on Tilghman Road, the gates are down... we ride around. Water is pumping outta the damn like a fire hose... a ten foot diameter fire hose. Then we come to a place where the road is halfway washed out. At least the road wasn't closed due to the potential bursting of a dam.
From the parking lot and up, we ride against the flow of a river coming down the trail. The first stream crossing (sorry guys, I said there weren't any stream crossings) is pumping and crotch deep (at least on me). Precarious getting through the fastest moving water in the middle but gotta go up to get down.
Once we get on to the machine cut portions of Wolf, things get more bueno, well as bueno as a 5.5 mile single track climb can be.
Get up to Timber...
Hole in my crunk.
And then down to Hearthstone...
And then Colin gets a flat in his rear tire. I give him my standard lecture that any plusser tire under 950 grams should not exist, but that doesn't help speed up the process any. Two plugs and the sealant shaky dance... and it's not enough. Glad I insisted on stuffing Colin's giant plusser tube in his barely big enough butt satchel before leaving the lodge.
The rest of the descent goes without incident, but with our late start and the flat and plenty of tittydicking, we're behind schedule. Instead of getting Dog Graveyard to Tillman West (I know the spelling is different and do not know why), we just rode back to the lodge for dinner.
Everyone had their own adventure when they got there, so no one really missed out on an experience to share with the class for the Show and Tell portion of the evening.
Incredible food..
good friends, and mebbe a late enough night that the few of us that were still up realized we were being stupid and joined the others in needed slumber.
Big (complicated) plans for Saturday.
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