West Virginia Whirled Cup/Van from Man-Tuk't Tour: Part Three

We woke up late (again) in Fayetteville and walked to breakfast.  Along the way, we found so much candy in the streets from the homecoming parade the afternoon before.

What's wrong with these kids today?  Was there a hundred tossers and only one child?  When I was young, it was a street fight to get a pack of Sweet Tarts.  THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF.

Anyways...

After a late start and a later breakfast and some last minute planning, we were off to ride in the Cranberry Wilderness.  It was gonna be a tight fit tryna get our ride in AND make it back to Snowshoe in time to watch the Women's Shart Tarck, but we're not the sharpest bowling balls in the shed.

Park at Cranberry Glades and pee in a field of flowers... and also bees.

The plan is to ride Kenison Mountain.  Looks like an "easy" 20 mile loop.  Nothing is easy in West Virginia except finding street candy.

Headless Bill Nye getting sendy in the Bear Aware Zone.

We slogged our way up the gravel, to the "rolling" climb through moss and roots and rocks and mud bogs and general mayhem for 8.5 miles all the way to the "payoff," a 1.15 mile descent that drops 1,000 feet, a definite test of my re-mojoing.

It was a hairy bear.  It was a scary bear.

Hold up.  Let me unpack my adjectives.

It was fucking steep, fast, and gnarly.

Get to the bottom, come to the wide creek (crick in local parlance), and I ask Bill Bye if he remembers when we used to toss our bike shoes across a creek and why weren't we ever worried about the expensive and sometimes irreplaceable hardware on said shoes.

"I member."

We both take off our shoes and somehow I'm faster with that task, enough so that I'm on the other side of the crick getting ready to put my socks on as Bill Nye enters the water.  I warn him that the rocks at the bottom are extra slippery.  I look up just in time to see him get to the deepest part... and down he goes.

FUCK.

He went in, his bike went in... and what's that floating downstream?

His shoe.

Dammit.

He's in no place to make chase with his bike in tow, and I've already got a sock halfway on, not to mention my foot/ankle/leg doesn't wanna run across river rock.  Problem being, we still have a seven mile climb back to the car... and this isn't the Van With One (non) Red Shoe Tour... so I start making like Gollum across the river rock on the banks.

I try to cut the shoe off once as it went past and missed.  Back to the bank for more Golluming, and it looks like I got one more shot.  I have to get a little more risky with my next attempt, but I manage to get the shoe this time.

Shoe retrieved, Bill Nye pissed that he's wet, me happy I didn't bust my ass (although it did go into the water with my phone in my hop pocket), we get our shoes back on... and then none of it matters as it rains on us on the climb back to the car.

Now we're bee-lining back to Snowshoe to make it back in time for Shart Tarck, and somehow we're pulling into our parking spot and walking up the mountain just in time to hear them calling the women to the line.

Watching the Shart Tarck up close was much buenos.. and despite what it looked like on Red Bull TV, I was glued to the action.

That was them coming past the second to last turn on the course, and as soon as they went by, I turned around to watch the Jumbotron at the bottom of the hill to watch the sprint finish.

Stick around for the men's race which is just as excite, and right as they were finishing the last lap, we were socked into a cloud.

West Virginia, you so funny.  They don't call it the Sunshine State for nothing.

The rest of the weekend was a blur.  I got a quick solo ride in before the men's downhill on Saturday... making it back just in time for the start of the race.  Kinda becoming a theme.

I got stung by a bee while spectating, and it seemed like everyone I've ever met walked by our position high up on the course (we weren't walking all the way down again).

Then it mighta been time to head to the top of the mountain to make party with Handup.

It is a pretty place to be pretty.

Got myself a funny hat.

There mighta been free beer and some dancing and Shaggy mighta foisted me into the sky on the dance floor and I mighta spent a lot of time talking to people from Charlotte.

Up late on Sunday but comfortably early for the afternoon starts of the XCO races.  The women's race was abnormally boring with Evie blewthe field away, although the grin shining through her pain face was amazing to watch.

The men's race was abnormally excite as the top group had a lot of big names in it all the way late into the last lap.  Obviously Bill Nye standing on the corner here just a mile or so from the finish was all Blevins needed to see to inspire him to win a World Cup XC race, a first for an American since 1994.

It was kinda chilling to watch the podium ceremony.  I don't think it coulda been more emotional (if you have emotions).  Big Bike Mike and Hubbs treated us to a home cooked (not van life) dinner that night, and then we headed back to reality on Monday, mine being four hours in the waiting room at the vet for Boppit.

The end.