STOOPID 50

This past Sunday marked the 2009 Stoopid 50 in Rothrock State Forest. The course this year took riders up bear meadows to the rolling and sometimes rocky and fun obstacle filled Tussey Ridge Trail, down the extension to treaster kettle, up the steep double track thickhead climb and down into coopers gap via Penn Roosevelt. The finish took them down Detweiler, up gettis and onward to the rocky Old Laurel descent / finish. The course was rocky, fast, and challenging. It was a BLAST to be there.

Pictures are posted on my website.

I spent the day chasing the race around -- scoping out photo opps and cheering all of my friends (new and old) on. I started on bear meadows road and shot up to the ridge (one of my favorite trails). I moved onward to coopers gap and back to detweiler and finally the finish. It was a a lot of hiking around and jumping into patches of laurel as racers blasted by...

it was a BLAST.

As the race progressed many racers began to recognize me as I popped up around the course. It soon became a running joke... and I got a lot of pictures of smiling mountain bikers that way.

They'd look at me, smile and say "You again? How did you get here?? You were just down on the road... now you're up on the ridge..."

Really, I used my jetpack to get around. shhhh.

I made a lot of friends pre-during-post race and was inspired watching the friends I ride with (during my social moments ;) ).... kick ass...

Big ups to WV for WINNING the WOMEN's race!!! Check out the action here. There are 5 links - one to each section of the race ( I took a lot experimenting with some new settings in the forest!!)

A few teaser photos are below:

WV coming down Old Laurel for the win...

Straub looking huge.

Left: Rach on the ridge after (our) FAVORITE log / rock bridge. Right: random cool pict.

Peter acknowledging his manny manny manny man-ness. Thunder!

Left: Mike ridin fast; Right: Jess representing on the NINER!

At the end of the day i realized i had at some point ripped my shorts straight down the side! Battle wounds???