we do this for fun....right?

today was the rocktober challenge. kuhndog and highspeed cycling put on a great event, that was sadly not very well attended. as of wednesday of last last week there were 31 people registered. seriously people, don't bitch about not having shit to do when there is a fantastic event in central pa. make it a weekend and camp out for crissakes.

after the rain all day friday, conditions were expected to be nasty. yet again, despite the anticipated mayhem, it wasn't all that bad. (thank you ma nature)
from bikereg:

Its Longer
Its Harder
Its Rougher

and more inaptly named and inappropriately described than ever!

That's the theme of the '08 Rocktober Challenge at RB Winter State Park in
the Bald Eagle State Forest of beauuuutiful central PA.New for 2008 is a full
110k distance and the addition of even more rocky singletrack. We're
pretty sure that you'll realize why we kept the Rocktober name after only a
little taste of the course. A 3-leaf clover sorta trail configuramagation
allows us to keep the start, finish, and our checkpoints all in the same place
and makes spectating better than usual at an mtb endurance race. Okay, so
spectating at an endurance mtb race pretty much sucks, but at least this way
your s.o./kids/parents don't have to nap quite as long until you come back
around. We're thinking 5.5ish hours for the fast guys. We will have
a cut off at CP 2 of about 7.5 hrs.

Kuhndog hit the nail on the head with that description, except for the finishing time. He was off by a solid hour.

holey frijoles that was one of the two toughest races i've done. the other being bakers dozen earlier this year. hell the wilderness 101 is easier than this. about halfway through i started to feel the bonk coming on. the symptoms include fantastic thoughts of food (usually cheeseburgers) followed by hunger then no gas in the tank. right about this time a feed station appeared and i stuffed myself with as much food as i could. shortly after i blew out my rear tire and had to boot it with a used gel wrapper...sweetness. i can safely say i'm not looking to ride rocks anytime soon. seriously.

visitPA.com rolled it with rob taking 2nd, the legend-3rd, and me-4th. michelle rocked the W in the womens class.

speaking of the legend, he caught up with me at the 2nd checkpoint and we rode the last loop together. we had a gentleman's agreement that we would stay together until the finish and then he could finish in 3rd to take max points for the MASS endurance series. while riding together we got to talking and commiserating about how brutal and tough this course is. i knew it already, but i had to tell him what a stud he is. i mean seriously, if he has been doing the bike game for so long and now he's back to the dark side and absolutely killing it against the younger crowd. i wonder if he thinks this was epic?

kudos to kuhn, the volunteers that help make this a success and the pa dcnr.

Thanks to our sponsors: VisitPA.com, Cannondale, Rudy Project, Deuter, Northwave, Suunto, and Cadence.