Alternate title: Why you should take your family to a pro mountain bike race.
Woke up Sunday morning and said to my wife, "do you think we can be ready and out of the house by 10am?"
"Huh...oh...oh yeah...I forgot," she groaned.
Notice I didn't remind her of anything. All week I had been talking about going as a family to watch the Greenbrier Challenge UCI Pro Race in Maryland. She just didn't want to go for some reason...
Nonetheless, I made it happen. We packed the cooler with PB &J, watermelon, oranges, some baklava left over from a party, and of course, Diet Cokes and headed to the mountains of Central (or is it Western?) Maryland to catch the race.
On the ride up, I played up the race. "We're going to see all the pros." And I started naming the local heroes...Jeremiah Bishop, Chris Eatough, Sue Haywood...
Now Jack jumped in..."Chris Eatough is going to be there? Really?"
Jack just learned about Chris Eatough on Thursday when he accompanied me to the hometown premiere of 24-Solo, which I'll review in another post.
"Yup, Chris Eatough will be there," I said.
Next Claire (my 6 year old) chimed in..."Daddy?"
"Yes Claire?"
"Will Gwadzilla be there?" she asked innocently.
Kgirl and I just lost it and began laughing hysterically. (Of course he was there, though we left before we had a chance to catch up with him).
We arrived at the race just as the pros were staging. On the sidelines to my right was a woman with a baby in a papoose saying "there's Daddy," and pointing to one of the riders. I asked her which one was Daddy and she pointed to none other than Chris Eatough. (Were the stars aligning, or what?)
"Oh really, well Jack and I just caught the movie the other day in Arlington. Chris is Jack's new mountain bike hero...he's got the poster on the wall and everything." We continued some small talk for a minute or two and then the riders were off. But not before I snapped this pic of Chris getting a good luck kiss from the family.
It's incredible how fast the pros are! They just shot out of the gate and up the first hill as though there was no tomorrow. Since I have ridden this trail several times before, I decided it would be most interesting to watch the riders go through the first technical rock garden. It proved to be the perfect choice.
Todd Wells and Jeremiah Bishop were the clear leaders of the mens race. After only one lap it was clear they would dominate the day. But Greenbrier is a very technical race course, it's very rocky with one crazy steep hill so anything could happen.
One by one we watched both the men and the women navigate the rock garden, as each lap progressed it was obvious that some riders were becoming fatigued and began to get sloppy through the rocks. There were only a few slippages, however, and no major problems for the riders getting through this tight and twisty section of floating baby heads.
Around the fourth lap, Jeremiah Bishop was only 45 seconds or so behind the leader Todd Wells. He entered the rock garden just after one of the pro women racers and had to pass if he was to continue to make up time against Wells. Thus, he did what any skilled east coast rider would do and took a hard inside line over several boulders and zipped on by without even skipping a beat. Incredible!
Now it was time to hike back out to the finish line. I parked the family on the side of a hill overlooking the finish and grabbed the cooler from the car. Meanwhile, the announcer started riling up the crowd with announcements from the field. Will Jeremiah make up enough time? Can Wells hold on to the lead? Only time will tell. Suddenly there's a report that Wells has blown a tire with 6 tenths of a mile to go. But Jeremiah is less than a minute behind...he'll have to ride it in if he wants to win.
Next we get a report that Jeremiah has also flatted. Will he ride it in too? Where was he in relation to Wells? No one knew for sure. From a distance a rider emerged from beyond the lake. Was it? Could it be? Who is it?
Finally, we recognized it as Todd Wells who was wobbling in on a shredded flat tire still going at full speed.
A few minutes later another rider emerged...is it Jeremiah? No. It must be Chris Eatough then? No. It was Jeff Schalk from Trek/VW - East, who quietly raced consistent fast laps and held out for a very respectable second place showing.
Chris Eatough finished third, while Jeremiah finished in fourth with a final lap that was about 8 minutes off the pace from his previous lap, due of course, to the flat that he suffered near the end. Clearly not a happy man for the moment, he threw his bike down in disgust and walked off the course. Who could blame him?
Then it was the women's turn. Katie Compton, three-time U.S. Cyclo-cross champion, was out in front the entire race to take the Challenge by a margin of more than two minutes. Sue Haywood came in second and the crowd roared as she is one of the regional favorites.
After the race we were finished with our picnic lunch. From the hillside we watched as the remaining riders - Experts, Masters, Clydesdales, and Single Speed - took off into the mountain side. But we would not see these riders to the end as it was time to get home, cook dinner and get ready for the work and school week.
But not before visiting the Trek/Volkswagen tent and trying to catch up with one of our heroes.
"Jack. Claire. Come here. Quick. It's Chris Eatough. Check it out he's over there washing his bike. Let's go meet him."
Shyly they followed me over as I "stalked" Chris and asked if he would mind getting a picture with the kids. Very graciously he accepted, of course. A little small talk - the movie, Jack starting to ride with me, the Jason Berry interview for the blog - and he was off. What a nice guy.
And now, Jack (and Claire, though she may still be too young) will have a memory for life. It just doesn't get any better than that for an eight year old kid.
All-in-all, it was an amazing day. Aside from gas, the whole day cost us 4 dollars - the out of state entry price for the park. I can't think of too many other sports where you can get right up to the action and meet the pros to boot. What a day!
Photo at top of post is from Kevin Dillard. Check out all of his Greenbrier Race pics - coming soon.
Check out my other photos from the day on Flickr.
Greebrier Challenge Race Results
A "real" race report from Cyclingnews.
