Joel’s Recap:
24 Hrs of Rocky Hill
Another successful race for the BVMBA. Although some of our riders had a few bumps, bruises and sore spots we all left in ONE piece!!!
James and Mark Munnerlyn got the short end of the stick when there 4 man squad was cut in half. None the less they both put in speedy times and finish with a total of 7 laps.
I finished each lap well within my designated goal time. I only crashed 4 times during my time on the trails with a major wreck on lap 6. Felt really erie watching the rocks coming straight at me. I was able to do 9 laps putting me in10th place for my 2nd attempt at the 24 Hr race.
But the highlight of the 24 Hr wknd was the Dream Team (Mike, JP, Kim and Ali). They competed in the 3-4 person co-ed and finished a solid 3rd place. Each member of the team pulled off some incredible times with some solid riding. CONGRATS to everyone!!!
Camp Eagle Trip
Mike, Joel, Ali, JP, Nicholos along with first time visitors James, Travis, Jason and Jonathan had the chance to ride the mountain bike trails at Camp Eagle.
We all arrived at different time and unfortunetly not all of us had the chance to get a quick 6 mile ride in on Friday evening. But the trails were in GREAT condition. After our quick ride we all gather at the camp site for dinner and conversation. By this time everyone but Ali has made the journey to Camp Eagle. As the night progressed we started to worry a little since there is no cell service and the only internet service is at the camp headquarters. 30 more minutes we kept saying, “if she’s not here by then were going to sleep”. Well she make it with time to spare. All BVMBA’ers accounted for and now time to rest for Saturdays ride.
The prelude to any group ride is always a fun sight to observe. No specified time to wake up, eat or even start riding. We’ll have to definetly work on this in the future. Just Kidding !!! Am I ???
Our goal for the ride – Make sure to hit every possible trail with no major injuries !!
We all get organized and hit the trails. Mike leads the group starting off on the Fish Trail. Fish Trail is usually where most of the races at CE start and finish. From there we jump onto Duck which runs along the Nueces River and is the start of the North Loop. Two really cool section to get the legs jump started before we make the ascend up (Boot, Moon, Texas) to the 2nd highest point at CE.
For the most part these 3 section have been slightly modified to keep you on your toes throught the challenging areas and still allow you to feel confident about your biking skills.
We had several stop along the North Loop to make sure all riders were accounted for and make sure everyone was still feeling the energy to ride on. Time to descent down back to the Boot Trail to finish off the North Loop. The second half of the Texas trail is a nice technical switchback trail that ends back on the Moon trail. From this point it became a flowy downhill that feeds back into the Boot trail and really starts to get fun. Our speed slightly increased as we headed down to the creek beds and back to the campsite for a quick five minute rest before we conquer the South Loop.
We started off by hitting the jeep road to the start of Lisa Ln. trail. Actually we started off by fixing Ali’s rear tire. Flat as a pancake. New tube was holding zero air. After further evaluation there was a whole at the base of the valve stem. No bueno. Mike double checks the tire, inserts a new tube and now we’re off.
Lisa Ln is a nice smooth gravel road that goes straight uphill for about 200 yards. Nasty climb. But as the old saying goes “what goes up has to come down” and that is exactly what we did for breif minute on Longhorn. The only bad thing about this is there is a 180 degree turn at the bottom. That’s right folks time to go back up, again. The up part was filled with several rocky techinal areas or as I call them WALKNING sections. But still a blast.
We all gather at the top for a brief second and then hit the Armadillo trail down to the creek bed. The creep bed portion is in my eyes the best section of the entire trails system. I could ride there all day!!
Don’t know what got into Mike, JP, Nick and myself but we take the creek bed challenge. Sometimes rolling over rocky technical section is easier at speed. It doesn’t feel like your taking all of punishment the rocks are giving. As usual Mike gets to the end of the creek bed first and starts to mess around with a little climb. We all try the section and after one failed attemp I was out. I decide to sit my tired self down on a cool boulder. Within minute we’re all together again just about to continue the ride as Mike takes one more quick spin up the little climb. Bang, Boom, Blam is all I can see as we hear Mikes back wheel slam into a rock. That’s right folks second flat of the day. No worries the rock I was sitting on and the ground where JP was laying down at stayed cool the whole time.
Quick fix and back on the bike to cross the suspension bridge and head back to the campsite for a breif break before we hit the final 5 miles fo the day.
The last 5 Miles of the day included the longest hill up to the wind mill and longest descent of the day.
The windmill jeap road was even more intimidating than Lisa Ln. At least on Lisa Ln you have trees on either side while you are climbing. While riding up the Windmill jeep road it seemed like you were going up to heavens nothing but blue skies. Always a challenge for me but I was able to make it up 150 yards or so before it was time to get off and do a little hiking. Can’t recall who made it all the way up the initial climb. But if you did CONGRATS!!!! At this point we are only 1/3 of the way to the highest point at Camp Eagle. Still a little more climbing before we hit the fastest mile on the trail. But before we get there we stop and check out the New Zip Line. I believe I heard someone says it was the longest in the world or at least in Texas. By now the heat and fatigue factor are starting to take a toll on some of us but we all continue forward. Somewhere along the fence Jonathon has the a flat tire and the third flat of the day. We quickly fix it a try to catch up with the rest of the group. The bad part of this section is that there are now signs or posting indicating you are leaving Camp Eagle property. We’ve missed the turn toward the 1 mile descend before and ended up going up and down hills and crossing a few property lines. It was a great expedition but with it being the first day of deer season we didn’t want to make that mistake again.
Unfortunely we made the mistake again and quickly back track and find our turn. We took a few minute to make the turn a little more noticable for future visits.
I can’t even explain how fast the 1 mile downhill was. But in Mike’s words: WEEEEE WEE WEE WEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! My max speed for that section was 35.4 mph. Boy was I glad I didn’t have a flat tire or wreck. That was pretty much the end of the day on the bikes. We finish the last mile or so back to the campsite where we grap some grub, rest and change for out trip down to the Nueces River. We take a toll of all the bumps and bruises and It looked like Travis was the winner this time with Jason a close second.
We had to cancell any plans we had for Sunday biking because a Pretty Nasty storm hit CE. No worries we ended up taking a 3-4 mile hike on Sunday morning before we hit the long journey home. If you didn’t make the camping trip this time please make sure to clear the schedule next time we plan our next trip. You will not be dissappointed!!!
Big THANKS to Mike Record for getting everything organized!!!
A short video for your viewing pleasure!!!