andy reagan only the interesting stuff

ACCC Conference Championships

For the second consecutive year, WVU hosted the ACCC Championships at Wisp Resort just over their border in Maryland. It's a long drive, but was well worth for an excellent weekend of racing, and winning. As a team, we took 1st in every category except women's b, and I personally took 2nd in our Men's B 1-2-3 domination train. We stayed a rental house on top of the mountain that is amazing, complete with hot tub and a 1/4 mile ride to the start of the races and the ski lift.

Cross Country

On top of the mountain at Wisp, the temperatures were in the low 40's with wind gusts over 50MPH. Freaking cold and windy. I had packed light, and didn't have nearly the clothing I thought I would need, but turned out just fine. The cross country race was two, 8-mile laps that began at 9AM. Before the race, the majority of us were huddled in the resort's shop on top of the mountain trying desperately not to freeze.

As it goes, it never takes too long to get warmed up on a bike and I ended up being hot in the flannel jacket that I wore, but kept it on while sweating my butt off so I wouldn't just leave it in the woods. I ended up not getting it back after the race anyway, but oh well.

Off the gun, I got a good start and was the first rider into a short lap of a field before we hit the trails. Being the first one here was actually the worst, because they didn't have the turns marked at all in this field so the group cut inside of me on both turns and as we hit the trail, I was back in like 20th place. The start is important in these races, and this one very much so. The trail went downhill, and through some huge rocks and mud pits. Being behind so many people, one person doesn't make it though the rocks and everyone behind them is forced to get off and walk through that section. But the guys out front just ride on. So, I was stuck behind through this really gnarly section and lost a couple minutes to the leaders. By the time we got out to where I could ride my bike around people, I gradually pulled up to like 5-6th, somewhere in there.

It was an extremely hilly course, as one would expect at a ski resort. We had gone down the mountain to begin, rode a couple miles at the bottom, and went up and down to the top for the rest. The climbs were not technical, mostly on fire roads.

After the first lap a good number of people behind me had given up because of the cold and the combination of getting wet and muddy from a really tough course. I pushed on for one more, and without a crowd in front of me, was able to clean the really tough downhill. That was sweet, and I knew that I had made up a good chunk of time on Bill who was in 5th in front of me. I caught him on an uphill, and we rode together for awhile. I was bummed to see Andy W on the side of the trail, he'd gotten a flat.

On the uphill, I picked up the pace for the steep parts until I was out of Bill's sight, and just kept going hard till the finish. Passing those two, I finished in fourth place. Bill wasn't too too far behind, and Andy W had managed to fight back to 6th after borrowing a pump from Branson Holt of NC State.

Short Track

We had not too much more than an hour and half to warm up for the short track, but with a hint of sunlight it got to be closer to 50 by the time we were headed back out. It was pretty sweet how close our house was to the course again.

This is my favorite short track course of the year, and it lived up to expectations. It's got a mix of everything: super fun table-tops and jumps, a technical rock garden, and a small climb.

Without too much detail, I really enjoyed the race, and got 2nd ahead of Andy W and behind some NCSU guy on a rigid 29er. I didn't clean the rock garden every time which was slightly disappointing, but was airing out the jumps and having a blast.

Super D

The three Men's B (Bill, Andy W, and I) debated for awhile whether or not we wanted to do the "Super D." The race is a mass-leman-start downhill, which sounds like bad news and generally is. The fact that we run to our bikes helps to spread the group out before hitting the steep downhills and jumps, but it's still super sketchy. Maybe it should be called a "Super S." One of the guys who came for the weekend to do just the downhill stuff offered me his sick downhill bike, and having *thought* the course wasn't so terrible from the year before, I decided I wanted to do it. Which meant the other two were doing it too, Bill was indifferent and Andy didn't want to do it, but I figured hey we were there to ride bikes.

Cody's bike that I borrowed is a Trek Session, their top of the line downhill bike that has dual suspension and 8" of suspension travel on the front (compared to my 3"). It's pretty heavy, but designed to eat up jumps and rocks going downhill. I'm not sure why, but most downhillers don't wear clipless pedals but opt for platforms that have lots of grip. I donned my running shoes and sweatpants for this one.

As the race began, I was one of the first to my bike and was headed down the hill ahead of the group. Someone was coming around to my left, and we both sprinted at the trail to be the first in. Well, the course was different from the year before, and instead of turning right into a 3ft tabletop, we went straight and hit a 6 or 7 foot jump. Needless to say, I was not ready to take that jump at the speed I was going, nor was it meant to be taken at that speed. I launched off into the air, and instantly my feet had come off of the pedals. I don't know how they can stay on without clips. We had hit the jump so fast that we totally cleared the landing, and without a bike underneath me, I went face-first into the dirt.

I stood up and first checked that my nose wasn't broken, and was quite surprised that it didn't hurt too much to move. I wiped my mouth and it was bleeding, and spit out some blood. My teeth were good, and I got back on the bike to just roll down the course. No chance that I was catching anyone, but I was somehow mostly fine. Rolling through the finish line a minute behind everyone else, looking like I got punching the mouth, I found our team and got them to look at my face. I felt fine, but that doesn't usually mean too much. But I just had a scrape on my lip, and my lips were kinda puffy, but no real gashes or anything. Lucky.

When I got back to the house I cleaned up, and learned that not only had I crashed on that first jump, but so had the first guy in each of the other two fields. And they were both from Tech as well. Both of them turned out fine in the end, and one was already back at the house. The other, Jake, didn't remember where he was so his parents had rushed him to the ER. Christian had broken his helmet in the crash, and head injuries aren't something to mess around with, so he was definitely going to go get checked out. I felt totally fine, but there was no reason not to go and make sure I was good.

Jacob and Cecil drove us to the ER, and neither of us had concussions. They x-rayed my neck to make sure I hadn't done any damage, and I was good. The doctor actually told me "you're good to race tomorrow." Not that I had any intention of racing, that was good to hear.

Celebration/Chillin

While five of us were at the hospital, they had given out the awards. With only two gravity races the next day, we had officially won conference! As it turns out, there are separate categories called "cross-country" and "gravity" for each class, and since the pedaling stuff was done, they added up the points and Andy W won Men's B. So I was second, and I'm interested to see by how much because it had to be like 400-399 close. All in all, we had won the conference as a team, and took 1st Men's A (Jacob A), 1-2-3 Men's B (Andy W, me, Bill L), 1st Men's C (Cody B), and 1st Women's A (Kay). Pretty killer result as a team!!

We had a small celebration that night, and like most of our team, today I didn't end up doing either the downhill or the dual slalom races. I was cleared, but both courses were super intense and I didn't feel like banging my face again. We hung out and watched as a few of our guys competed, tried to do HW, and came home successful in our quest to defend the title.