L O S T (not the TV show)

The merry band of wanderers from Roanoke left at 0800. As I said to Paula during the day, I'm glad we got an early start. We spent 4 hours in the woods on Liberty Mountain attempting to pre-ride the race course. We spent about an hour and a half of that going nowhere. Yes, nowhere equates to going 0 mph. This time was mostly spent trying to figure out where in the hell we were. We took maps with us, but without the most recent trail map (version 4) of the entire trail system, we were pretty much barking up the wrong tree. There were several occasions where we found ourselves backtracking just to find the right trail head. First we lost Pa-Paw - eventually we found the fat bastard and rode him. Then, we couldn't find a Walk in the Park to save our souls. We found fireroad after fireroad and eventually stumbled across it. Interestingly we found a trail map with a "You are Here" star. We were still left wondering were we really here? Or there? Perhaps over there? We made a Great Escape and even found Hydaway Lake and camp (well sort of). We made a Lassoooo, found a trail head kiosk at Camp Hydeaway Rd that also seemed to indicate, "You are Here" only this time "Here" wasn't where we wanted to be. We rode around some more, eventually running into a local rider who help steer us in the right direction, but have no fear we screwed that up to and wound up backtracking. I think we did take A Trail too Far and the Lake Trail. Honestly at this point, I don't know.

I do know the following:

• I had a lot of fun today
• Not having the best map really causes frustration
• Not having a local along for the ride doesn't help
• I have a great circle of friends
• Overall I do feel better about the race - it may take me a while to finish the race, but terrain wise I think I'll be ok. The trails seem to be full of the same stuff.
  
• I also can predict that I'll need at least 6ml of Hammer Gel, Two Gatorades and a full Camelback and probably at least one granola bar.
  
• I can ride the bridges. Even one of those rickety, log/branch bridges.
• I will have to walk at some points during the race
• I can't get frustrated in this race - just have to think of it as any other ride

We had 9 people on the ride today. (Ron, Warren, Paula, Laura, Anais, Patrick, Brian, Tom and Me!) Everyone did great!!! I had a blast!!! The other bloggers may have pictures too. Meanwhile here are mine:



There is a bike race next Saturday in Rocky Mount, VA. It's race #4 of the Derailler Series. I raced here last year and didn't mind the race course, but Tropical Storm Hanna may affect our weather: