The Bulldog Romp! Kittatiny!

ah kittatiny! it sounds so much cooler when you say it like groundskeeper willie!

so the boys from Darkhorse, and lady, saddled up this weekend to head on down to kittatiny state park for team bulldog/campmor's bulldog romp. this race was not only on the AMBC calender but also served as the NJ state championships. so if you were able to prove you were from dirty jersey and possessed a norba licence you could get yourself crowned king or queen of the garden state! thus big crowds were to be expected, and big crowds there were. while checking out the pre-reg list the sport singlespeed class looked like a darkhorse training session! a veritable whos who of the 1 gear crowd with el hefe himself, big george, ditching the gears and joining the pain train!
i hitched a ride down with our westchester representative, voodoo tony. we arrived a bit early so we saddled up for a pre-ride/warm up. the trails were in excellent shape. swoopy and fast! with just a few roots and log overs to keep you awake. one of these log overs had its way with tonys rear wheel and he burped a bit of stans and some 02 back to the atmosphere! pre-ride abridged and back to the car. after a quick tube insert back out we went to scope out some more of the singletrack. we ran into rasta paul, a fellow singlespeeder and eventual member of the darkhorse ss syndicate, and spun around the singletrack. with the exception of some sweaty rocks the course looked primo.
the rest of the crew trickled in and we all held court under a tree awaiting the start. eventually we lined up and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would indeed have to do a bit of racing. they sent us one gear folk off the front and we all fell into pace. i grabbed rossi's 650b wheel and let him run crowd control. the first few miles went by in an anaerobic blur. bobby and sal were off the front with the big boys, tom was my pace man and tony came up shorty to take over. george was letting his internal diesel come up to speed a little ways back.
the next lap and a half or so went by smooth. i was enjoying the singletrack and getting into a good rhythm. i would see a flash of a darkhorse jersey from time to time and was working my way up. riders passed me and i passed a few. all in all it was a good singlespeed course. there was one rooty climb the needed to be dismounted for but other than that, if the line was clean it was all rideable. coming into the last few miles i came up on none other than the distinquished mr rossi and quietly sat behind his wheel. i eventually announced my presence and he let me know that tony wasnt far up the road. we paced together and spun out the last few miles. when we entered the field i thought i saw tony and we agreed to make chase. of course it wasnt tony and so tom backed off and i spun ahead. now here things will get a bit snarky. you see there was this little climb to the finish and it had some rocks and roots and you had to pick your line. i hit it in front of tom and he claims he called the left. i drifted left and may have blocked him out. we will have to consult the video for a play back. i can only console tom with the immortal words of Harry Hogge, Cole Trickle's crew chief in Days of Thunder.
Cole: he bumped me!

Harry: he didnt bump you. he rubbed you, and son rubbin is racin!

so i concede that i "may" have impeded tom's line slightly. i may even have rubbed him. but "rubbin's racin!

all in all the darkhorse crew had a strong showing. i didnt stick around for official results but i believe bobby was 5th, sal was not far behind 6th/7th, followed by tony, myself, then tom, and george sliding in not long there after.

if anybody has official results for the other guys send them our way and we will get them up. as well as anybody with ride reports from those classes that they allow to run gears! send them this way!

the series takes a break for july and august. there's plenty of action in the area and we will be busy in the lead up to the 40! start getting those endurance miles in!

Webb dominates the 12hrs of round top solo!

Well it started out at 60 degrees with 100 foot visibility do to the over night rain, which made for some real interesting greasy singletrack. Notice I said singletrack because the course was 90% singletrack and 10 percent duo track, which made for real slow going, especially with the 800 plus feet of climbing and descending per lap. Tymor would be the closest course I can say it reminded me of, with strong climbs and awesome single track. Well, correction, being out on a course for 11:13 minutes, nothing is awesome.

I raced in the 30-9 SOLO geared division which was kind of cool, being that all 11 of us were sport riders, so we did not have to race the super powers of the experts, like in the other solo age divisions including SS. There were lots of riders from our area and h2h series, that made the 160 mile trip up to Pennsiltucky (Pennsylvania), which made me feel at home. That's till the gun went off and these guys took off like it was a 15 mile sprint, I was like wow these guys must be team riders. No, I was wrong they were solo guys and 47 minutes later when I crossed for the start of lap 2 in dead last place in my division and 20th overall, I realized it was going to be a long lonely day of suffering. All the early bird sprinters started to die out around lap three and started pitting, right about when the 85 degree temps with blazing sun appeared. So I just kept it consistent, navigated the course, bombed the downhills and creeped up the climbs, and stayed out till lap 5 before I made a pit. Just before my pit I heard the announcer say that I had the lead in the division and made my way up to 9th overall. That really excited me, and when I pitted I prepped the bike which was nasty with petrified early morning mud, refueled and ditched the stupid camel back. Twelve minutes later I was back on the bike. At this point the east side of the mountain was dry and fast, funny how it still had those nasty climbs though, which at the end of the day, I death marched! By the end of lap 6 I had built up a 36 minute lead on the group behind me, consisting of three riders chasing . I was averaging about 51 min laps, and know the mental games started, why I was here, this bike sucks, life sucks, I should be home with the kids, I should pull money out of the spiraling market, my ass is sore , my balls ache, will I ever be able to get a stiffy again??? all that stupid mind crap. Then I remembered I was in the lead, wow this is pretty cool, that was till the rains came at like 230, then back to the mental crap again. Its like a private Mental soap opera out there, up, down, up ,down etc. Just as the sun came out again and the temp went back up to about 75 I pitted on lap 8, ditto of the first in and out in 17 minutes. The course was getting fast again till the monsoon came with wind, 60 degree temps and lots of scary lightning. The trail know became very tough with slippery roots, rocks and peanut butter mud which quickly became little streams. There was one climb that you went straight up a power line for about a 1/4 of a mile and a gain of about 160 foot vertical, and it was in the wide open and besides the waterfall coming down the lightning scared me like a little boy. I climbed that pretty quick to get out of the open and back into the thick canopy that the rest of the course was under. There were riders and spectators slip, sliding ,falling and study Geography all over the place. I pitted for my last time on lap 10, put my 60 lb. Titus in the stand, blasted it with the hose back down to 25 lbs, rested up all for a total 20 minutes and went out into the absolute torrential down pour for 2 more laps. I caught second place and just rode his wheel thinking that he was a whole lap down, to my surprise he was almost 2 down. So as George says I do so well, I just half wheeled him. At hour 10:20 I started out on the final farewell lap. The monsoon stopped and the course was like a war zone, but juiced and confident with victory, I managed not to fall , and actually rode a good lap. I came through at 11:13hr mark and I could of gone out for another, but the promoter said there was no reason, that second place was on lap 10 and he only had 17 more minutes till cut off. So trusting their judgement on the bad conditions, and not wanting to abuse the bike or cause any bodily harm I called it a day. Second place came through with 11 laps in 12 hours 6 minutes I believe, so he was about 2 hours back.

I ended up, I was told 4th overall with the winner doing 15 laps in 12hrs ,second doing 12 in 10:45 hrs, third 12 in 11:06, and myself with 12 in 11:13. The post race meal was awesome, sausage and peppers, chicken penne, ziti, pirogue cheese pie, hot dogs, hamburgers, beer, soda, vitamin drink, and a awesome band. I think I ate two helpings of everything. That day I used (3) 24oz 1300 calorie perpetum cocktails and 128oz of heed, 3 pb&j's, a good breakfast, and huge post race meal and I went from 194lbs-186lbs....crazy! I got a bottle of wine, really sweet floor pump, and a 35 pound polished engraved granite trophy, for my suffering..... very cool. Oh yea and our sponsor at the shop says if we win we get our entry fee back......is that so Bobby?????

Its funny, that in the gallop the week before under perfect conditions on a hard tail single speed I had all sorts of problems. If I did not have Steve Prushki and all his tools I would have never had completed the 15 mile race. But this race in horrible conditions with gears and all the suspension pivots, I had a great race, and besides alittle chain suck, no mechanicals/ flats for 12 hours......again crazy. In all it was a great race, nice course, great food and cool awards. So will I go back .........????

see you on the trail
CWEBB

get your gallop on!

well the gallop is in the books!
we had a great turnout over the weekend and team darkhorse was well represented!
preparations for these races begin months in advance and actual course prep begins in the spring. george got down to the nitty gritty at the beginning of last week by getting out to mark the course. using many many arrows and leaving a considerable amount of blood, sweat and tears out in the woods the course was looking real good.
saturday afternoon we set about assembling registration and scoring, placing banners and the specialized arch, and assembling the "chute". while thunder and lightning threatened and apparently pounded some of the surrounding areas we stayed dry! barely a drop fell in stewart. a quick pre-ride tape check proved that the course was in stellar form. fast, flowing and extremely fun! with all the hardware set for the am we headed off to darkhorse headquarters to feed ourselves and tie up a few loose ends.
race day started early. it was around 4am when i heard george wandering around. it was 5 when he poked his head in to tell me coffee was ready and it was time to get our game on. we stepped outside to a perfect morning. cool, little overcast, but dry.
by 7:30 registration was getting cranked up for the beginners and the usual cast of characters were starting to arrive.
the beginners set off on time at 9:00am and they had quite a field. there were many hard fought battles for the hill climb preem and the spectators got into it cheering on the riders!
the sport class was huge! a great turnout and a very large womens field! its always good to see the ladies coming out to these events. this wasn't always the case and its nice to see that aspect of the sport growing! the sports went off without a hitch and a pile darkhorse racers were in the mix. the singlespeed syndicate was in full effect with all the usual suspect as well as a few guest appearances from some darkhorse racers who decided to shed their gears for the gallop! overall the team did very well in sport and a huge high five goes out to them!
the experts and pros waited very patiently during a slight delay while the emts tended to an injured sport racer. once the green light was given the pros took off like they were shot from a canon. the expert singlespeeders went next and our own mike rave grabbed up the hill climb preem only to be delayed by an untimely puncture on the trail that he helped build!! our darkhorse experts put in a good fight. battling for 3 laps in the increased heat and humidity for solid finishes all.
in the end a good day was had by all! now its time to begin focusing on the 40! couple pictures below of the guys stolen from the web! if you guys have pics or race reports send them this way and we'll get them posted!!!
Rossi climbs with his game face on!

Webb brings it home. he seems to be in a spot of bother!