Just a few days shy of one year ago, I wrote this about the Pisgah Stage Race:
Perhaps the best way to describe this challenge is to note that on the event website, the declaration that “this is designed as a true race, not a test of survival,” is intended to be reassuring. As an average, non-professional rider, one notch down from “test of survival” is still in the arena of experiences that inspire trepidation.
I’m not afraid per se, as much as I’m trying to build the emotional foundation upon which I’m about to heap more physical exertion than I’ve ever experienced. Luckily, I still have 18 hours until I leave the first start gate. I’m fine. Everything is going to be fine.
No matter how hard things get, though, I’ve been blessed with a rock-solid, time-tested love of both mountain biking and the mountains of Western North Carolina themselves. However daunting, the thought of spending 5 days in the woods on a bike causes a kind of giddiness in me.
You can check out the whole series here.
Needless to say, I survived. In fact, I did much better than I thought I would when I nervously penned those words. Performance aside, though, I realized why so many people I met at the race had attended year after year: it’s just one of the most fun mountain biking events I’ve experienced.
So, for all of those reasons and more, I’m back in the race for 2017. The daily blog posts will be back as well—and there will be a few new characters along for the ride. More on all of that later. In this post, I thought it would be fun to look back over the past year and make a quick list of notable stops on memory lane.
I invested more in my mountain biking game. As much as I loved the sport before, the Stage Race acted kind of like a turbo-charger and inspired me to think about intentionally investing in my riding. Here are a few of the ways I’ve worked on pressing the gas harder:
- I attended a skills camp – I took a Better Ride mountain biking skills camp with Gene Hamilton. The things I learned were absolutely fundamental to breaking bad habits and understanding the mechanics of going fast.
- I studied suspension setup – I’m a fairly good mechanic, but I’d never spent a ton of time tuning my suspension. Afterall, good-quality shocks and forks feel pretty dang good right out of the box these days. But there’s a really big difference between feeling pretty good and feeling completely dialed in.
- I learned to bleed brakes – I love my local bike shop, but this was one of the major expenses that I wanted to remove from the list of things I have them do on a regular basis.
- I started a workout program – I’ve tried all sorts of workouts in the past, but had the opportunity to work with Dee Tidwell of Enduro MTB Bike Training on a plan designed specifically for mountain biking, specifically for me. Racing season is just starting, but early signs show significant improvement. And, well, he works with the Master of Enduro, so he knows his stuff.
I raced more. After the stage race, I did a handful of other races. As crazy as it sounds to say, I even got first place in one of them!
I helped start a mountain biking team. As you can tell from the new website, me and my brothers put together a little racing team. Between the three of us, we’ll race all over the place this year, from here in the Southeast to France and British Columbia. We’ve even found a few brands to give us support along the way, which has been awesome.
I became a father. Oh yeah, I also have a child now. It’s pretty amazing. I’ve had to get much more disciplined about planning out rides, but my wife is incredible and I’ve been able to keep up a pretty strong training and riding pace.
We’re about 10 days out from the start of the race, so I’m a little ahead on the blogging game this time around. Next time, I’ll introduce the motley crew who will be joining me for the adventure this year.
Dodds Brothers Racing 