How To Be Awesome at The Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic

Once again my last week of May was dominated by the awesomeness that is TSE. This post is going to read a lot like the last installment in the How To Be Awesome Series. It will not contain too much race report content as you can read race reports at cyclingnews.com and on the TSE blog. Instead I will offer you, my misguided reader, an insiders look into what exactly it takes to rock out at TSE. 

First off:  Know what the hell you are getting into. I am not talking about the courses, reading doesn't make you better at rocks, sadly riding road bikes doesn't help either, but we'll get to that. Instead look for info on how to win the week. For example, whats the best lodge? Where is the nearest beer store? Do you know how to 'rassel a rattlesnake? I didn't think so. Fear not we will go through it all in this IPA, Pale Ale, Oatmeal Stout induced guide. 

Lodging:

Rimney: It is scary there. Wissell is there. He beat me in a wrestling match and pushed me in a lake. Fear the Wissell. 

Eagle: Dicky is there. Not scary per say, just, well, Dicky. Don't do it.

Single cabins: The really cool Panama riders took them this year. Seems like an ok idea. 

FEMA/Katrina trailer: Reserved for Kuhn and the Louisianian black mold that shipped with it. Has AC.

Tent: I don't do tents. No advice here, you dirty hippy. 

Go back to college dorm life. Flips flops on at all times when inside. Lodges get "dank" as Lindine would say.

Chillin at the Eagle. A E Landes/TSE

Now that you are sufficiently screwed on lodging, lets talk about food. 
Meal Plan: I have never done the meal plan at TSE as I like to escape camp for a bit and go to State College to eat sometimes. Every night I walked into the dining hall for awards and regretted my decision. Desserts EVERYWHERE. I love cookies.

No Meal plan: Get some friends (preferably one with a Costco membership) buy some stuff and plan meals. Works very well. Only problem is noted above.

Snacks: Bring too much. Share.

Breakfast: Chocolate Chex. Whatchu know about this chocolate cereal game playboy? Nothing. There will be at least one coffee snob in your lodge, make friends with them. Hit the redbull lounge to supplement. 

Pizza: Nobody delivers to the scout camp, at least that Lauren and a smart phone could find and she "procures" things for a career. 

Beer:

State College: Safest bet but also 15 miles away but has a drive-thru beer store. Even after all of PA's stupid blue laws, you can drive-thru for beer. An experience not to be missed by the out of stater. 

Brownies: 2 miles from camp, use only if desperate  If you want a "I'm going to get shot" moment, go there. I asked for 30 "kinda cheap" beers. When the bartender asked me what cheap was, I answered PBR. 3 locals started screaming at me in central PA English, explaining how PBR was the most expensive beer they had. Bartender can't add 9+7. Be warned. Dont go with ID -less Derek Bissett.

Create a Catch Phrase:

This year was dominated by "piece" such as "Yo check out my new LEFTY piece" Or "Hey lemme get one of those beer pieces." Laughs were had when a warning of  "Don't look this way or you might seem my D piece." was cast when changing pre stage.

Lodges can have catch phrases too. "EAGLE" was heard every time a Eagle lodge member climbed the podium during awards. If racing duo, every time you assist your teammate, like passing the salt at dinner, state "Duo" as a form of bonding,

Picking a Duo teammate: 

I already stake claim to Craig "Imma Do Me" Lebair, so you are already at a disadvantage. You can't have my Craig piece, but you can do the following:

Find somebody who faster at stuff you suck at. I went down a cliff 3 min faster than last year because I knew Craig would make fun of me if I sucked. Motivation. 

Drop in to win. Craig only had time to pee this year on R B Winters penultimate descent, instead of the nap he took in 2012. A E Landes/TSE

Racing Etiquette: 

Don't be an asshat:  

A) Let the GC women's leaders do their thing if they are faster than you, they probably are and they have cash one the line. 

B) Don't yell at people. Yelling when you can ride a section but 9 people are walking in front of you makes me angry. Matt Harris pre-oatmeal angry. 

C) Don't pass unannounced or in stupid place. Finish times are over 17 hours 1 second isn't going to kill your week. A crash might. 

D) Be fucking nice. Say thank you. Say good job. We all ride bikes. Chill, ha. You will see these people again.

E) Have respect for those better than you. You will be amazed at some of the things you see people ride. Learn from it.

Unofficial Stages:

Wednsday Night: Go up to the field and join in the Hammer Nutrition (they buy the beer) Wed night stage 4a. Wheelie contest (Props to Gunnar Bergey) skid contest, relays for socks, bunny hopping, lighting shit on fire... go hang out. Don't get pissed when lights out is not at 9:30. You are not pro, you are sleeping in a tent, dirty hippy. 

Ripping up on my coach's bike. A E Landes/TSE

Stage 8 Three Beer Derby World Cup Eliminator" DJ will shoot fireworks at your head, the race promoters will break all of the fine print of their insurance policy, and Sue Haywood (dressed as batman) will DQ your team if you don't finish your beer. It will be filmed, embrace it. 

#YOLO, DJ. #YOLO.  A E Landes/TSE out of the line of fire. Coward. 

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Photos:

Make friends with Abe Landes. Not only is he really really funny and an all around awesome dude, he will make you look way cooler than you really are in pixels. Looking cool leads to all sorts of other cool things. If cyclingdirt interviews you, have a personality. Dig deep. You got this. 
Get a signature look. I do x ups, Craig Lebair does Blue Steel. Perfect it, do it all week. 

Blue Steel captured by A E Landes/TSE

The X Up (while complaining) burden on A E Landes/TSE

The Actual Racing Your Bike Part:

Pedal hard, have fun. This is probably your vacation, enjoy it. Race for the pictures. Tell your cube life coworkers you rode a 20 hour week and see their faces as they look at you with puzzlement. In this case being the 1% (that races bikes) is a good thing. 

How To Be Awesome at Iron Cross X

Iron Cross is one of those races where I have to do a bunch of things I don't like to do to race it.
You have to get up at Dark:45 to get there. 
You have to put water bottle cages on a cross bike.
You have to worry about flatting 52 times.
You have to worry about dying since your longest ride in weeks has been 2 hours with intervals. (not 4+)

Still. I go. Why? Kuhn makes me. Also when you "beat" all of these dumb things you don't like to do, it makes it all the better.

To add to the excitement, the weather guessers guessed the weather would be in the 40's and raining. Luckily they were only half right. It only kinda sorta rained for a minute, making the conditions chilly but dry. This also kept the chances of hypothermia down. 

Blue Steel. Photo: AE Landes

Craig, Steve and I treated the race as some kind of weird TSE like trio. We held on to the lead group for a bit, then eventually let the balloon of crazy pace go and settled into our own pace.
What that really meant was riding hard, but easy enough to be able to talk. What that really means is annoying the living shit out of everyone around us. I thought most of the topics of discussion ranged from "Purple Drank" to solving complex global issues like the economic decline in Greece. Some mentioned we were solving complex high level math as they rode by. 

So now that you know how it went down, Here are my secrets to Iron Cross X.

How to be awesome at Iron Cross:
Training: Train for 'proper' CX. sprints, barriers, off cambers. Do not ride over 2 hrs. Ever. Race 2x a weekend.
Tires: If Cross Bike, run like 60 psi. If tubeless on cross bile, run like 40.If MTB, you missed the memo it was called Iron Cross.
Brakes. They don't work. Prepare to ride singletrack in the drops so you can brake. You'll get the hang of it. Remember Cross tops? Yeah those nerdy break levers from 6 years ago everyone seemed to have on cx bikes, well Craig had them and they seemed to work. Disc brakes might be nice here.
Nutrition: Eat cookies at the aid stations. Drink PBR at Larry's Tavern. That should do it. Recover with potato chips.

Chips. Photo: AE Landes

Gearing: Don't change your cross bike gearing from your normal race setup. 36x25 will leave you second guessing what the hell you got yourself into on the first slight uphill singletrack. Riding in the drops at 45 rpm at 6 mph is an interesting experience everyone should know. It wont get old, I promise.
Key Course Features:  The run up. Its steep, and very very long. Bring a set of crampons and a Sherpa  Your back is going to hurt. There is a sand pit early on. Sand at high PSI is always funny. There are a few gravel descents that may kill you. You got this.

Cresting the run up. Photo: AE Landes

Coaching: Fire your coach mid race. I do this a lot.

Photo Credit: Mike Kuhn, who I was in the process of firing. 

Getting Rad: Its ok to jump stuff or take a log over that has a clear bail out option. Its ok to wheelie on the climbs. Just remember, you're basically on a road bike which means, any small trick you do will seem way cooler than it actually is, and secondly, any small trick you do may actually kill you. Don't get dead.

Remember folks. Do Iron Cross, it will make you famous on the interwebs.
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Battenkill

I am going to skip right to the end of the Cat 3 Yellow race. I stayed near the front, I kept out of trouble through the graded sand pit sections, I made the splits. I kept air in my tires... everything was splendid. 

ksj photo (Meeting House Rd)

Mile 56: Entering Stage Rd, the last dirt climb, 1 guy took a flyer and got maybe 20 seconds. The group was going pretty slow at this point. I saw the "Red Barn" which is Newport's landmark to "If you are not in the top 15 you are screwed" I was 5th wheel. There were a few base attacked and I just sat and followed wheels making sure to not get gapped out. I stayed 5th or 6th up the climb. The flyer guy came right back on the climb and were racing to win again. 

There is always exactly 1 moment at Battenkill where I nearly die. This year it was at the very top of Stage Rd, right as the dirt ended. 2 riders crossed wheels in front of me, as I was surging to gain a spot or two before the descent. One went left directly in front of me. His bike spun like a top, and ran it over with my front wheel as I dabbed to stay up. The 8 man group went down (literally) to 6, and I had 30 ft to make up to get to the 3 leaders. 

17 mph with a foot in the dirt.

Here comes my excuse... in the crash my front wheel came way out of true from striking the bike and my brake twisted. I didnt realize this at the time... I chased for 10 minutes but could not get back 10 seconds to 1/2/3. 4th left us and I couldn't stick the wheel, leaving me and 6th to sprint. I beat 6th, and nearly caught 4th, but was not able to close it fully. I knew how hard I was going and well, it all makes sense after learned how messed up the bike was. Oh yes. My legs. Those were cooked too... 

Feeling a bit dizzy.

Battenkill is always fun for me for as its a bit of a spectacle. The race itself is interesting enough, but the entire town shuts down for this thing, and there are spectators out on the course and climbs. 


Its also a special race because I am related to a 3rd of a nearby town (Mechanicville) My Grandpa and various Aunts and cousins always come out to cheer and call me crazy. I think I had the loudest cheering section!

I crushed the chicken pot pie at the Cambridge Hotel and got sufficiently buzzed off a single beer. Thanks to Dave Pryor for handing me a beer every time I saw him this weekend. Thanks to Fred Brown for buying me some chocolate milk since I missed my own by a few seconds. Thanks to Laur and Emmy for the feeds. 

The Relay.

My mountain bike skills are slanted towards the twisty and rooty side of the spectrum. Rocks and straight have never been a strong suit. TSE and Bear Creek have done a fantastic job in reminding me of how wide a range of skills are required to be a complete bike racer.
Luckily "the farm" was built for me. Fast, flowing but difficult corners, logs, and plenty of Nintendo style combo moves... those are the skill efforts you make when you have to say, set up for a turn, while hopping a log over, while thinking about braking for the next turn, while planning an acceleration out of it all. Plenty of linking little moves together in the pursuit of fast. These things are the most fun for me.
Steve gave our relay team a great start and came through with 3 or 4 guys ahead of him. I got the handoff from him.
In 14 minutes and 33 seconds I unleashed every ounce of harbored anger and frustration I had stored up since August 21st. I translated every frustrating minute on the trainer. Every second of doubt I maintained regarding my fitness, every missed race, every time I questioned my capabilities and ability to regain what was taken. I wanted every missing watt back, right then. Revenge on time off. Revenge on a man who I wouldn't trust using a pencil let alone a 4000 lb car, revenge on time wasted with insurance companies, revenge on every little twinge and ache we feel. 
For 14 minutes and 33 seconds I fought my bicycle as if it were at fault. Admittedly I focused less on line choice and more on applying the most force to the pedals as I could. My heartrate closing in on a few ticks shy of 200 bpm on the second climb I knew I was at full gas. 

I crossed the line, threw Craig into his lap as hard as I could (with the good arm). The funny part was at the time, I wasn't thinking about any of this. In reflection upon the efforts did I realize why I was doing what I was doing. Motivation is a huge thing in bike racing. Often times the most fit rider does not win the race. Sometimes the more motivated prevail. Here's to hoping I didn't drain the entire tank in less than 15 minutes. See you out there.