Long Time No Post

Well it's been a while since I last posted but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy. This winter we decided to focus our trail work on improving some of the existing trails rather than creating new ones. So far the work is coming along pretty well with some repairs and re-routing of trails in some area, though I have to say I do miss the excitement of building (riding this summer) a new trail. We have benched in some areas that needed it and chosen some better lines to improve the flow and increase the speed on a few trails.

If any of you are familiar with this blog or our trail working habits you know that the weather rarely stops us from working and today was no exception..........19 degrees and snow on the ground. Below are a few pictures from the last few weeks work.

LMBA TT

Yesterday we finally put together an idea we have talked about for a while.......doing a time trial. This seems to be a common thing amoung mountain bike groups. Pick a good trail on your home turf, create a loop with a good combination of technical sections and speed sections and see who can ride it the fastest.

Here's what we did.....started at the shelter #5 (across from the train), rode the Fitness trail up the park, hard road to the beginning of the Woodpecker trail, Woodpecker back down the park, took the first exit point (the one with the sharp right hand switchback in the downhill) from the Woodpecker to the hard road, hard road back to the Fitness trail all the way back to the shelter, 2.5 miles in all.

As in all time trials we started the first rider, waited a few and started the next. We all made a big mistake and began our ride without any warm up. By the time we all finished, the cool temperature and the 100% effort really put a hurting on our lungs.....they weren't the same the rest of the day.

Here's the results..........next time around we hope to have a few more participants!!

100% Complete

I'd like to give a shout out to a rider that completed all 15 races in the WVMBA series this season......Ron Salisbury Jr.

Ron is a good friend of the LMBA and participates in our trail wok efforts. This year he competed in the Sport Grand Masters division finishing 2nd over all and finished all 15 races this season. After a quick scan through the WVMBA overall standings for all the past seasons it appears that this feet has not been duplicated.

This shows a great commitment to the WVMBA race series and the sport of mountain biking in West Virginia and we hope to see him out on the trails for many years to come.

Chris

Update Pictures

We have added some new pictures from the Chief Logan Wilderness Challenge.

Here is a link, the new pictures begin about half way through.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jsj7475/2010WildernessChallenge02#

Check back soon for some different race course photos.

Hope you enjoy,

Chris

WVMBA Championship

Well after a big gap in blog coverage I'm finally getting to post a little about the WVMBA championship race at Eleanor, WV. The LMBA had a pretty good showing at this race with even better overall results in the series.....Let's just move straight to the overall year end standings.

William- 1st place sport masters

Dennis- 5th place sport vet

Chris - 2nd place beginner

Derek- 3rd place beginner

Here is a link to some pictures from the championship-

http://picasaweb.google.com/jsj7475/WVMAChampionship#

We have had a great time this year training and racing, but to be honest it's OK that it's over. now we can focus whats left of the year on some fun rides and kick back and enjoy.

We all plan on racing next year with some class changes of course. William will be moving to expert, Dennis staying in sport vet, Chris moving to sport vet and Derek to sport. It should be interesting to see how we all handle the moves.

Next on the agenda, is the return to our commitment of trail work. We will be focusing the first part of the off season to improving our existing trails in Chief Logan State Park. We will be fixing several problem areas and overall just tailoring this trails to be more fun and smooth. The second portion of off season will be devoted to extending the Wildcat trail. If your not familiar with this trail check out some of our older post and you will quickly see how much work has gone into it so far. Many riders have commented that it is the "best trail in the park" and it will only be getting better this winter.

I hope to have more regular post from here on out, please check back often to see how we are doing

Race at Davis

The team was together this weekend for the WV State Mountain Bike Championships in Davis WV. Several of us took our families up for a long weekend and enjoyed the surroundings of Canaan Valley, Seneca Rocks, Dolly Sods and the downtown area of Davis.

On race day, the morning started off a little sketchy with the late arrival of William to our tent area. He had been delayed on the way in and was scrambling to fix a pre-race flat before anything got started. We managed to get it fixed, and him geared up in time for the race meeting with a few minutes to spare. This is the race début for his new Cannondale Flash 29’er and things were off to a rocky (literally, if you know the course) start.

As the race started William got out to a good start, just to be brought to a halt a couple miles in by a rear tire flat. We all passed William as he fixed his flat and got back on the trail. It wasn’t long before he caught us and passed us with hopes to climb back to the leaders of his class.

Derek (newest member of the LMBA) and I continued to race the beginner loop never to see William again. Derek passed me at one point and opened up a small lead. I got off to my usual slow start and then got the motor turning about half way thru the race. After Derek opened up his lead I saw him bobble on one of the many rock gardens and used this to make my move. I powered through that section in the big ring and opened a lead on Derek that I was able to maintain throughout the race. I then started to pick off other riders as I started to feel better and pick up speed. My effort landed me an 8th place finish, not as good as I had hoped but not bad considering I was only 4:40 off of the leader. Derek finished a very respectable 10th out of 28 riders in our class.

Dennis had the best finish on our team with a 7th place in the Sport Vet category, continuing to improve his strength at the new sport distance that he is trying to get use to this year.

As for William………2 more flats that day (yes that's a total of 4) put him pushing to complete the race and a 12th place finish. This dropped him to 2nd place in the overall Sport Masters class for the year. A couple more 1st place finishes should remedy that and lock in the overall win this year.

All in all, this race turned out to be on of the worst showing for LMBA this year. We will be at Little Beaver next hoping to improve our results. Although we are all out to just have fun and ride, finishing well never hurts.

Remember,

If you don't crash, you're not riding hard enough,
Chris

Follow his link to pictures from the 2010 Wilderness Challenge.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jsj7475/2010WildernessChallenge02?feat=directlink