May 3, 2004
Short results list for those who don’t feel like rea ding the whole
report:
Saturday was the Cat Classic www.catclassicmountainbikerace.com
Caitlyn
Tuel – pro/expert women – First Place
Jon Posner – pro/expert
men – Fourth Place
Sunday was the Escape From Granogue/Andrew Mein Memorial Race
Chris Eatough – pro
men First place
Todd Helmick – pro men Fourth
place
David Duvall – pro men Fifth place
Caitlyn Tuel – pro women – Second
place
Jon Posner – singlespeed lackey category – Fourth place
Great days, great races. For details read on . . . .
You know it has been a good weekend when you wake up on Monday and you are still grinning like a fool in spite of the pain and soreness. It was a long weekend for some of the Trek/Volkswagen East Coast Team, a double header that included nearly 15 hours of driving time. This weekend we attended the Cat Classic race in Cascade, PA and the second of the five race Trek Classics series, the Escape From Granogue (Andrew Mein Memorial Race) on the DuPont estate outside Wilmington , DE . Both events were huge successes, as the following story will tell you.
The Cat Classic is a fledgling race in only its second year, and is held on a family farm property near Williamsport , PA. It isn’t exactly close by, but it was well worth the drive to get there and I highly recommend it to racers for next year. The property is the Logue farm, and what makes it especially interesting is that Mr. Logue has one of the largest collections of Caterpillar heavy equipment in the world. You may think this means a few tractors and bulldozers, but you would be wrong. It means that everywhere you look are dozens if not hundreds of gigantic pieces of construction equipment, from 5 year old road graders to 70 year old track haulers, this is a construction paradise. There are incredible stories behind every piece, this one built the Alaskan Highway , that one paved the D.C. beltway, etc. On top of that, the Logues have a machine shop that rivals that of most major manufacturers of metals. Mr. Logue boasted that he can measure to the hundred-thousandth of an inch – that is small.
I got home from work on Friday evening and scrambled to load everything I would need for a weekend of two races. By 9 pm I was rolling, headed to West Chester , PA to stay the night with Patrick Leslie, Eastern PA rep for Trek, Klein, and Fisher bikes. We ate an d c rashed, then rose at 4:30 to hit the road to Williamsport . We arrived at the race venue about 9 am and got straight to work setting up our team trailer and expo. Warren Reid, the race promoter, greeted us warmly and set us up with a prime spot for our rig. Caitlyn Tuel and I were the only two team members who were able to make this event on Saturday, there were schedule conflicts for everyone else, so the two of us suited up and prepared for an unknown course in the mountains of Pennsylvania under beautiful conditions.
This course was billed as a “real mountain bikers course” and that actually might have been a tiny bit understated. The terrain was deliciously technical and steep. The course followed numerous jeep roads and singletrack sections, and I didn’t see any pavement the whole time, which was a treat. Most of the wooded sections were quite rocky and rough, and made for a painful third lap. There was also the matter of the final climb, a ten minute hike on foot up one of the longest, steepest hills I have ever seen in a race. It hurt especially badly under the hot sun that day, and I dismounted and removed my helmet to make that climb each lap. Even eventual race winner Brandon Ott, skinny climbing freak that he is, only rode it one of the three laps. The best part of the loop was the “chutes” of the chutes and ladders section. (The ladder being that final climb) The chute was just as steep a descent, super fast with a few tight turns near the bottom. On the first lap I went in with too much speed and stacked it spectacularly, doing a somersault while still clipped into my bike. No injuries and I kept rolling. I managed to clean it on laps 2 and 3, and somehow I suffered to a fourth place finish in the expert class, although I was nearly a half hour behind Ott. Caitlyn also hung tough in her race and finished not far behind me, crushing the womens field and taking the win. One of the neatest things was that the course ran right through one of the many huge barns housing the Cat equipment, and the finish line was in there too, with refreshments for the racers on hand.
This event is still young, but deserves the growth it is sure to see. Warren
and his staff of incredibly hard workers made it a super fun time, and
we didn’t even get to experience the guided tour of equipment or the
fun night ride the night before the race. While getting ready to leave
we were roped into free sodas and burgers from the staff and a lot of great
conversation. We will definitely return to the hills of Cascade for this
race again next year, and if you like a good event, you should go too.
The finishing touch on such a great day was the ice cream place Patrick
and I found on the way out of town that has been making homemade ice cream
since 1927. Probably the best ice cream I have ever sampled in my life.
And I know what I’m
talking about. CONTINUED>>>>>>>>