| 24 Hours of Snowshoe June 29-30,
2002 |
Written by Jon Posner, Team Manager of the Trek/VW/JBL East Coast Factory
Team
|
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On Thursday evening the rains came, not heavy at first, but steadily increasing
on Thursday late at night until it was raining so heavily at some points that
just the sound of the torrents woke people up. It continued all night and into
Friday morning. It finally cleared up before noon on Friday, but the damage
was done. What would have surely been the driest 24 hour race here in years
became once again an experience the memory of which would be dominated by mud,
mud, mud. As team mechanic Sean Langeheine and I set up our team's pit area
we took extra precautions in case weather decided to move back in, even though
forecasts called for clear skies the rest of the weekend.
As it worked out the weather did decide to cooperate for a change, but as we
saw more and more people finish their pre ride laps, it became evident we would
have our hands full with dirty bikes and mud ravaged drive trains and components.
However, the efforts of race director Laird Knight and his incredible team of
trail maintenance volunteers had laid down somewhere around 200 tons (yes, you
read that correctly) of gravel and built hundreds of feet of bridges to prevent
the trails from being ruined by water damage. Their work paid off, and more
than 70% of the course remained completely rideable even after the downpour.
The race started right on time at high noon on Saturday. Chris Eatough led out
for team Trek and in the Le Mans style start he was among the first to finish
the run of the prologue loop and hop onto his Fuel 100 to head into the woods.
By the end of the prologue loop on his bike he had assumed the lead, and when
his lap was finished, Trek has established itself at the front, with a four
and a half minute lead over the second rider to finish lap # 1, Nick Waite,
who was racing the duo pro class with teammate Alan Obye. Our first transition
went cleanly, with Chris ripping into the finish area with a time of 1:10 and
handing the baton over to Jeremiah Bishop, who proceeded to put in his best
lap of the event, and set the course record for fastest lap with a 1:03:51,
a mind boggling fast time considering the course and its condition. Jeremiah
came off the course in great shape and then it was Linda Murphy's turn. Linda
had just found out she was doing the event 48 hours earlier, and had flown up
from Florida where she races for the Southeast regional Trek/VW factory team.
She stepped up nicely with a solid 1:28 lap time. Next was Kristine Oesterling
out of Pennsylvania, she went out and tore around the course with a time of
1:24:44 - and set the lap record for the fastest woman's lap time! Trek was
hot out of the gate and had established a commanding lead. Only at one point
were we slightly threatened. The team running in second place tried an unorthodox
approach and ran it's two men twice back to back (guy1, guy2, guy1, guy2) which
put them in the lead for one lap. This forced them to run their women the same
way right after that though, and we quickly extended our lead to over 1 hour.
Chris and Jeremiah were running so fast and consistent with each other that
their lap times for both of their second laps were less then 12 seconds difference!
The routine was established and team Trek maintained the pace through the night
and into the next morning to extend our lead to over 2 hours! After a lap I
met the finishing racer at the finish tent and saw that the racer heading out
got away cleanly. Then we went straight to the pit area to strip off muddy shoes
and relay bike performance to master mechanic Sean. Mike Eatough did basically
all the bike washing at the mini power washing station we had set up right next
door, and less then 30 minutes after it came off the course, the bikes looked
brand new and shiny as ever for Sean to go over them and tweak them back to
perfection. Erin North and Ann Eatough oversaw the "operations center",
our room in the Silver Creek lodge where racers got cleaned up and ate tons
of calories to refuel their bodies. We were extremely fortunate to have Jamie
Justice on hand to do bodywork and keep the racers bodies tuned up as perfectly
as their bikes. Everything went like clockwork all the way through the twelve
noon finish time on Sunday, and the whole team greeted Jeremiah in the finish
area as he completed his last lap, the team's eighteenth. I worked with this
team last year for their second place finish and let me tell you, there was
no comparison. All I can remember is a ton of camera flashes going off and all
of us screaming and yelling, then the announcer coming over and getting a quote
from each of the riders. It was all pretty freakin awesome.
Things finally started to settle down and Sean and I set to work dismantling
what had been our home for the past 24 hours. We got everything put away and
awaited the awards ceremony at 3 pm and the presentation of the crystal cog
trophy. The awards were a blast and the trophy was everything it was meant to
be. It felt great to heft that thing over my head and whoop for joy.
Some other very cool things that happened in that race,
In the first three hours of racing Sean and I must have assisted twenty other
racers with things like broken chains, snapped cables, loose grips, you name
it. It felt pretty nice to do that neutral support and keep people's races alive.
We kept up our neutral help the whole race through.
We provided to other racers :
2 inner tubes
3 shift cables
2 crank bolts
1 chain ring
1 chain tool (loaned)
seat post hardware
1 rear wheel (loaned)
a dozen powergels
several feet of grip safety wire
Chris pulled a 1:09:54 on his NIGHT LAP - a blazing time anyhow, but to have
done it at night!!!! . . . . . .
The team's Trek Fuel bikes performed flawlessly - for every lap we had a spare
bike ready to go for whichever rider was out, and were prepared to make the
switch as the rider came through the pit area, but we didn't have to hand off
a single spare bike!
Team Bontrager, including team member and MTB legend Keith Bontrager, finished
second in the men's masters class!
I lost my Zeal sunglasses at the start line in the frenzy of getting everything
set. 18 hours later they were handed back to me by a race volunteer who had
them in a lost and found box - think that would happen at any other sports event?
Think again.
Thank you to Laird and Elizabeth and their crack team of workers, especially
Brandy, Suzanne, Linda, Karl, Craig, Brian, Sy, Gavin, Dan and Steve - You guys
and everyone else at Granny Gear made this event awesome
Huge thanks to Mike and Ann Eatough, the team was whole again with you guys
here this year, and your help was absolutely essential to our success.
Thank you to Jamie Justice, thanks for showing up on such short notice and helping
us out - I hope you become a more permanent part of the team
Thanks to Erin North again for her above and beyond efforts - this time after
knee surgery last week! and to Dana from iplayoutside.com She helped keep everyone
moving and kept us company at the pit area when we needed it.
Thank you Sean Langeheine, for being there with advice and helping me keep my
sanity all while doing all your own duties.
Thanks to all the team sponsors, Bontrager, Chris King, Hayes Brakes, Powerbar,
Volkswagen, JBL, Nike, Time, SRAM, Saris/Cycle-ops, Joe's Bike Shop, Platypus
hydration packs, Zeal eyewear, and Rockshox. Thanks to new sponsor Light n'
Motion for helping us see at night.
Especially thanks to Trek Bicycles for making this possible by supporting the
factory team program and investing in the real roots of mountain bike racing
and thank you to Ernie Martin, director of the regional team program, for giving
me this opportunity and providing such great resources.
Most of all, thank you to Chris Eatough, Jeremiah Bishop, Linda Murphy and Kristine
Oesterling. I have said it before and I still maintain that I could not have
asked for a better, more cohesive, more talented group of riders. I know each
of you will go on to greatness.
We will be back to defend next year!!!!
Jonathan Posner
Trek/VW/JBL East Coast Factory Team
Joe's Bike Shop, Mt. Washington, Baltimore, MD