hand me my 40!

the 40 looms large on the horizon!
get pre-regged if you arent already! save a few bucks and help to quell george's fear that no one will show up!
we got some great stuff in store. new t-shirt design this year thanks to the boys at american icon!
same great bbq plan with a few tweaks. but for the most part the boys will be back with their aprons on firing up the grill and cooking a bunch of chicken! no not the chicken that got booted from the tour! although i imagine he is pretty well cooked at this point.

the course is shaping up and we promise to bring you two laps of fine stewart singletrack aged to perfection and hand crafted for our fat tire pleasure.

so start kicking up the miles and get set to have a blast! any questions feel free to email or call the shop.

ROLLIN, ROLLIN, ROLLIN....................

just like elwood sang somebody, and i cant remember exactly who, told me that marty's course was rolling terrain with some really fun and fast singletrack. it rolled alright!
i had sent george out to utah for some good mormon teaching and 3.2 beer consumption so i saddled up early on sunday am and headed out solo. not that there weren't plenty of other darkhorses in attendance. to be quite honest the most time i spent on the bike the week prior was an epic singlespeed adventure around the cul-de-sac with the kids! hey we were all on bikes with 1 gear! so despite not having any miles in my legs i was stoked to ride the seven as a 1 speed on some new terrain, and really the race was in morristown how bad could it be? well i got there and reg'd and spent some time bs'ing with the usual crew. watched richard and bill represent in the beginner class and then decided to get my act together. my warm-up pre-ride consisted of riding the first mile or so and noticing that it was a gradual climb. hmmmm.
fast forward to the 1st lap and they let the ss guys go out in front, i think only cause we staked are claim at the start and who wants to mess with someone crazy enough to race a 1 speed bike anyway! we are about 2-2.5 miles in and pretty well strung out in single file but still together as a group when one of the guys looks at me with that grizzled, desperate, tongue wagging, on the rivot expression and says "rolling eh?".
so from there on out it was a war of attrition. after the 1st lap i shot down a goo and traded water bottles at the start finish, thanks mikes mom and sis!!!, and felt ok. well the next lap was a suffer fest and the third, well lets just say that i just kept going forward. i payed heavy for being off the bike. i was deep in the pain cave on the 3rd lap and glad to just finish.
it was the kind of course where you would be paying hard on the climbs and then come to a swoopy fast singletrack section and forget all about the torture you just endured.
yeah i'll be back! maybe with a set of legs that have some juice in them or maybe not but i will have fun!

all in all i think fun was had by all. great course and a great bunch of guys and gals.

anybody headed up to mt snow this weekend good luck and have fun!

got beer?

But dont have a sweet pint glass to put it in?
what ever can you do? hmmmmmmm

well fear not!!!!!

darkhorse 40 pint glasses are here!
new logo and design for this year!

stop on by the shop and pick one up!
guaranteed to make your beer drinking experience that much more bitchin!

darkhorse gallop is in the books!

well the gallop is in the books folks! and what a day it was!!
we had some prep issues in the weeks leading up to the event. we had to alter our intended course a bit due another user group being in the park. as it turned out i think it was for the best. we settled on a 5.5 mile first lap and a 6 mile main lap. we upped the number of laps for all groups from the first race and it seemed like everybody really enjoyed it! seeing some of the same trails as the first race but in the opposite direction really gave the course a while new feel.
sunday started early....at like 4:00am early....with george and myself sipping coffee and covering last minute logistics. next thing you know we were packing it up. always goes by to fast.
we want to send a huge thank you out to all our volunteers! without them non of this would ever happen.
so the Titus demo trailer was there and was a huge success. mike and his dog kula had pretty much the whole demo trailer on the trails and everybody seemed stoked to check out their bikes!
the series continues to grow and the turnouts this season have been awesome! great beginner class and huge sport class! the experts and pro classes are just smokin fast this year as well!
we had an awesome pro class! harlan price took top honors doing battle with fast eddy ceccolili and troy wells to round out the top three. we had a special guest appearance by the fastest pro women in the nation! georgia gould came out and mixed it up with the pro men for a 4th place finish! all i can say is hoora!

it was hot, it was fast, everybody had fun and nobody got hurt. i hope everybody went home happy and had a great day. we sure as heck had a blast!

thanks for coming out guys and gals!