Jeffepic Plasschilla Rollvemberfest

Fall is a great time to ride and this year’s weather has been pretty awesome (excluding a giant hurricane). So naturally, I had to put on my annual fall super-ride weekend spectacular.

We had a good crew assembled for the 1st day of riding. David R, Joe, Jim F, Jesse, Jason Plank, and myself headed up to the G-Dub in a caravan early Saturday morning. There were reports of snow in the mountains west of the "Burg" but I got some local intel from James Burris at Black Dog Bikes in Staunton that it should be OK. Fortunately, we were greeted with pleasant views of mountains that were dusted in snow, only up at higher elevations.

 

We made our way up to the radio tower on Narrow Back Mountain. Soon, we were rolling down a brand new trail that has been built by SVBC. This gem flows down the mountain with some doubles at the top and plenty of sweet cornering action further down. About half way down we took a moment to regroup and enjoy some wonderful scenery. By the time we got to the bottom there wasn't a face among us without a grin from ear to ear.

 

Next on the list was the climb up the Lynn trail and descent down Wolf Ridge. A chilly water crossing had a few of the group rambling through the woods looking for an easier fording of the creek.

 As soon as we hit the climb, calamity struck! A major mechanical delay with a broken cassette. I took on a strange role of fitness instructor, urging others to do some push ups to stay warm while the troublesome drive train was debugged.

With the equipment problems under control we began the ascent and soon realized another major problem. There were a ton of dead tree limbs and trees blown down all over the place. We quickly realized the severity after stopping two or three times to get around significant blocks in the trail. And we had only traveled a few hundred yards. It wasn’t the hurricane snowasuarus megadisater the news had been blathering about. Nope, just a bunch of sh*t in the way. Very frustrating.

 

A plan was hatched to return to Narrow Back and ride the Cookie trail backwards, and then revisit the new trail we had ridden earlier. We were all pretty chilly, but I assured the group that the climb up Narrow Back would warm us all up.

 

The Cookie delivered a tough and rocky road, but it was a lot more fun than pounding out gravel. During our second run on the new trail on Narrow Back I was following Joe and trying to keep up while he served it up bombing down the trail, hitting all the doubles with some tail whips for good measure.

 Just when it was getting good, calamity struck again. This time I found myself body surfing a rock armored section of single track after tossing my front end like a Frisbee. Nothing felt really bad, but I had an inkling that my hand got hurt. I held it up and all the fingers were pointing where they should and my hand moved OK. But, something felt funny. We all finished the downhill and headed back to the cars to reload for the assault on Lookout Mountain.
 

 

Back at the cars, I watched my finger swell up and decided I needed to call it a day.

David, Joe, and Jason continued the ride and got to check out the new trail on Lookout Mountain. I heard later on that it was pretty sweet.
 
I joined Jesse and Jim for lunch in Staunton before heading back to Richmond.

When the doctor at patient 1^st proclaimed I had a “chip fracture” I was a bit surprised. My expectations of a jammed finger were not matching reality. Unfortunately, this spelled the end of the Jeffepic for 2012.

Even though the weekend riding ended early, I think everyone had a blast and that certainly met expectations. While I prepare to start my offseason training, I’m already looking forward to Plassmania 2013...as long as the apocalypse of 2012 can wait a bit.