Twenty bloody Four freakin Hours of Allamuchy

The team was named C-Rock All-Stars - "C-Rock" as an homage to our favorite off-road stomping grounds, Chimney Rock Park, and "All Stars" as an homage to, you know, to ourselves.

I was substituting for the injured Jim, who'd hurt his back in a crash. No, wait, I was substituting for the injured Charlie, who'd hurt his leg in a crash. No, wait, I was substituting for Mike, who had family obligations. Okay, so the weeks leading up to the race were a big question mark, but Saturday was race day and all the chaos was put behind us... to be replaced with a whole new 24 (well, 25) hours of chaos.

The final team composition was Jim, Charlie, Jay, and myself. Our plan was to have Jim and Charlie lead off, then to have me race as often as possible until dark. I don't ride at night (that's when the vampires come out). Then in the morning I'd be well-rested and would give the guys as much recovery as possible between their laps.

Jim on a wicked-steep climb

The race was held at Allamuchy, which is primarily a Boy Scout camp. Despite never having gotten past the third grade Cub Scouts (unlike my illustrious Eagle of a brother), it will still be fun to honor the grand traditions of our weekend hosts in this here lil' ol' blog.

It is therefore with the greatest esteem and aplomb that I commandeer "The Boy Scout Law" and take more than my fair share of liberties with its order and spirit.

(Aplomb? Sure, why not. Aplomb.)

Ladies and gentlemen, with minimal further ado:

A C-Rock All-Star is...

--Trustworthy
Ah, the best laid plans, etc. I wanted to ride every other lap in the afternoon. After my second lap, I had to admit that I'd need two laps of rest. It stung, deeply, to say so. Pride, though, has no place in this sort of venture. I could've tried to protect my ego, could've raced another lap on minimal rest... and I would've crawled around the course and cost us a chunk of time. To deserve my teammates' trust, I had to let go of my considerable pride. Harder than it sounds.

From another angle, imagine what goes through a racer's head in the last mile of a lap. He's just spent nearly an hour (okay, significantly less if he's Jim or Chaz) suffering in the woods. He's tired and thirsty and aching all over, but he's pushing yet, because he trusts that there's a teammate waiting for him at the line. Otherwise, he may as well have just walked that last climb, or coasted a bit more. He squeezes every last bit out of himself, out of faith that it is energy well spent.

That, my friends, is trust.

--Helpful
Every so often, a racer would stop on the side of the trail. Sometimes he'd be fixing some technical difficulty with his bike, and sometimes he'd be clutching an injury. Sometimes he'd just be taking a breather. As per the unwritten code of mountain biking, you always ask if that poor soul needs any assistance that you might lend.

Because it very much is just that: a loan. And in the grand scheme of things, one would hope that this loan will be repaid.

--Friendly
There are some real characters at any off-road event. The unbearable ego that bears down at road races like a humid mist of pomposity is simply nowhere to be found. Making conversation, with everyone from the stupid-fast pros to the overweight in-over-their-head newbies, is a rare treat that can only be found at this sort of occasion.

Jay takes a silly line
photo by ImageExtreme

--Courteous
The trails are pretty narrow, and racing means making a lot of passes over the course of 24+ hours. Generally, the slower rider will yield, not because it's required, but because it's the decent thing to do. The faster rider, then, will always say "thank you, good luck". Or just "thanks", because going fast is hard work.

It is a sign of gratitude to the rider who has yielded at the expense of his own race. Even better, it's a backhanded platitude to the rider who hasn't.

--Kind
I don't know, I guess we're just nice guys. Jeez, Boy Scouts, are "kind" and "friendly" and "courteous" really all that different? Couldn't you write your law without a thesaurus?

--Thrifty
Um, I need to buy a suspension fork. To have any grip at all on this rigid monster of mine, I need to run low pressures, and that means risking a flat tire. I got a flat tire, two miles into the 9.5 mile course.

I then, somehow, got a pinch-flat on my spare tube. While inflating it. Is that even possible? Explain it to me!

photo by ImageExtreme

--Clean
So I had two flat tubes. Then some kind soul tossed me a patch kit... which had run out of glue.

So I had two flat tubes and a worthless patch kit. Then some kind soul tossed me a spare tube... which was the wrong size for my wheel.

So I had two flat tubes, a worthless patch kit, and a worthless tube. Finally some other kind soul gave me his properly-sized spare. Bless his heart.

I must've looked ridiculous, riding around with that much crap (plus pump, tools, battery, and spare light) in my pockets. But dammit, I couldn't just leave that much garbage in the woods.

What if a baby rabbit tried to eat a patch kit? Would you be comfortable killing Thumper?

Didn't think so.

--Brave
Because of the flats, I was still out on the course after sunset. I had never in my life ridden a mountain bike at night. It was thrilling and terrifying and brutal and miserable and lonely. I haven't had that much fun in a long time.

Also I crashed. A lot.

--Obedient
Being Boy Scout property, there were strict rules about the possession and consumption of alcohol. And we respected those rules, no matter how sweet a sip of the ol' Recovery Ale would've tasted when the last lap was in the record books.

--Cheerful
This was tough. Really tough. More so for the guys who'd wrangled lap after lap in the quiet, dark solitude of night riding. By Sunday morning, we were all pretty beat up. But somehow, we were cheerful. It's the beauty of a team effort, especially with this team. It is truly easy to be optimistic with these guys.

Chaz never looks anything less than intense,
because that's just how he races
photo by ImageExtreme

--Loyal
It wasn't about your burning lungs, nor your aching back or your deadened legs. It was about getting to that finish line so that the next guy could start, so that you could limp back to the camp site and look your teammates in the eye. Had you put me on a bike in identical conditions, with exactly the same time between laps, I would've ridden significantly slower, because neither Charlie nor Jay nor Jim would've been waiting for me .

--Reverent
I don't toss the word "miracle" around often, but Sunday saw two unbelievable efforts from the C-Rock All-Stars squad. Knowing that to have any shot at a top-3 finish, we needed to send a rider out for an extra lap just before the "finish" at noon, Jim and Charlie rode absolutely blistering laps.

You don't understand, they crushed the course. They had their way with that course. After 22 hours of racing, they both rode their second-fastest laps of the race. If you listen closely, if the wind is from the north and the moon is high in the night sky, you can hear the trails of Allamuchy call, "we are Jim's and Charlie's bitch!"

Meanwhile, the team in 3rd somehow failed to notice that they were about to be overtaken, and they didn't even bother to send out a rider to defend their 10 minute lead. All Jay had to do was ride conservatively and just finish one last lap.

The last three hours of this race were downright miraculous.

Jim turned himself inside out
photo by ImageExtreme

bonus:
--Dirty
Ben tells me that this is the lost 13th rule of Scouting, or something. It seems a Boy Scout is also Dirty.

Jay and I were standing at the finish line, waiting for Charlie to arrive. The rider from Team Sids, then in 3rd place, finished his lap, and Charlie wasn't due to finish for 10 minutes.

A Sids teammate called to his rider. "Don't worry, we're done". Done? "There's no way they can catch us!" Um, we're right here. We can catch you.

It dawned on us that the Sids guys were looking at the standings in their age group. Being younger, we weren't even on their radar. They didn't realize that we were about to overtake them, in the Overall competition.

As the Sids guys walked away, Jay did his best to hide from them. Not by cowering, no, but by keeping his numbers out of their sight. It's not our responsibility to suggest tactics to our competitors.

We'll never know if Sids realized their mistake. They probably figured it out at the awards ceremony, though. Ha!

1st Place 20-29, 3rd Place Overall
Team C-Rock All-Stars
(l to r) Charlie, Jay, Don, Jim

quotes of the weekend:
Good Samaritan, after giving me his only spare tube:

"Take it. I don't need it. Nothing's going to happen to me"

Jay, on the subject of songs getting stuck in one's head:

"Nobody had it worse than me. From 2 A.M., I spent an entire lap with the song from those Priceline commercials stuck in my head. You know how that song goes? "Priceline Negotiator". That's it! Over and over and over!"

Charlie, while lounging on a camping chair, eating warm chili next to his lovely wife:

"I love that I'm racing right now"