VCHSS Coyote Run (Rural Retreat, VA)

To wrap up an epic weekend on two wheels, I towed my YZ from West Virginia to Rural Retreat, VA to attend the Coyote Run race.

My friend Brian met me at the venue for his first attempt at a Hare Scramble. As I'm still a newb, I prepped him with the limited experience I had on Saturday night before we retired to our respective tent and car-camping abodes.

In the morning, we suited up for the ride and headed to the start grid. Our class is rather crowded, so I told Brian I'd let him go before I began kicking my bike to start.

When the flag waived I paused for a second, then got the YZ fired up and set out after my heat. By the first turn I was within the pack of riders, but when we reached the first climb I was a bit too close to the edge of the soft ground, eventually sliding off the side of the track and having to stop to pull the bike back onto the course.



Yanking the bike out of the ditch took a serious amount of effort, and with the following heats taking off seconds behind ours, I was forced to give way to them.



Eventually I was back on course, but forced to battle back to my heat for basically the rest of the race. NOT a great way to start!



A few dicey passes had me off the bike again, but eventually I made my way through the slower riders. There was definitely some back-and-forth going on as I routinely slid out while trying to pass a rider, only to be passed by the ones I'd just cleared.



Once I reached Brian I knew I was at least within the correct heat, and eventually I noticed another rider in my heat which I was able to clear and continue beyond.

Although the circumstances of my race weren't great, the course itself was phenomenal. It felt very much like a singletrack mountain bike trail with long off-camber sections, and several lines to choose from. Roots were everywhere, requiring split-second weight shifts to keep traction. Near the end of each lap, we'd ride through a creek bed, mimicking the slippery rock sections I'd been navigating in Slatyfork for the past three days.



With one more round near this area, I'm looking forward to another chance at similar terrain. Hopefully next time I'll have a better start ;-)

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Snowshoe Bike Park (West Virginia)

When some friends invited me to ride with them at Snowshoe the same weekend I would be racing a hare scramble in southwest Virginia, I decided not to turn up the opportunity. I loaded up the trailer AND roof tray to carry the dirt AND mountain bikes to wild, wonderful West Virginia.



Since reaching the ripe old age of 41, I’ve opted to ride cross-country more often than lift-accessed parks. One, because I get a better workout – and two, because there’s less chance I’ll suffer an injury.

Since there would be so much driving involved, I decided to extend my weekend by taking off Thursday and Friday to ride XC in Slatyfork, just below Snowshoe Mountain. Both of those days were long and exhausting, so I figured some lift-accessed runs would be a good break before my dirt bike race on Sunday.

It’s been several years since I rode at Snowshoe, but the runs still felt familiar and I had a great group of riders to follow down the track.

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Cape Lookout National Seashore (NC)

Our annual trip to the beach was another excellent weekend in the sun!



This year we invited some friends from Austin, TX to join us. They were going to be visiting Richmond that week, so the timing worked out perfectly!



One of the highlights of the trip was an opportunity to use my snatch rope. A Ford Ranger towing a camper got stuck when crossing the rutted sand on its way down the beach. Although the driver came prepared with boards and plywood to use as traction pads, he would require a bit more to get moving again. Luckily, a few tugs with the Crosstrek were enough to yank him out of the ruts and onto the hard-packed sand near the water's edge.



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Big Bear Bike Bash (Bruceton Mills, WV)

After Dirt Rag Magazine filed for bankruptcy, I was a bit worried that its events at Raystown Lake (PA) & Big Bear Lake (WV) would disappear as well. Luckily, the local riders in West Virginia did not hesitate to resurrect the event near Bruceton Mills. I would assume this is largely due to the existence of an event which predated the Dirt Fest, known as the Funduro.

This time around, the event was called the Big Bear Bike Bash, but it had very much the same look and feel of the Dirt Fest.



I wanted to get in as many rides as possible this year, so Rebecca and I stayed at a hotel near the area on Thursday night, allowing us to work remotely on Friday. Around noon that day, I clocked out and headed to the camplands, set up camp, and joined in on a ride with some camp neighbors.

On Saturday, Rebecca was able to join me. I probably should have devised a better "warm up lap" for her, but I wanted to badly to return to the Little Canaan Trail that I sort of threw her right into the deep end. She handled it well, and soon we were on the more manageable Roadside Trail. At the end of that section, I asked her if she'd like to wait for the shuttle or continue across the road to one of the iconic sections - the Crack Trail. Without a second of hesitation she decided we could both handle a few more miles, so onward we went, pedaling Beaver Creek to Voodoo Rocks, which eventually turns into Crack.

We rode with a couple other riders for this second half. I led us into the woods, followed by the two guys, then Rebecca. A few minutes into the trail I stopped to let them catch up - only to see that Rebecca had passed them both and was the next rider behind me! The guys were very complimentary of her riding skills, which boosted her confidence and gave her even more gumption to try the challenging up-and-over obstacles throughout the ride.

Eventually we reached the rocks which the trail was named after. The first is a narrow path between two large rocks and the second is a tunnel through a rock with a wooden ramp which drops back onto the trail. We stopped at each to snap a few photos before continuing on to the completion of the trail.



Once out of the woods, we pedaled to the country store to reward ourselves with ice cream before boarding the shuttle to return to camp.

On Sunday, Rebecca headed home while I took part in the Feats of Skill & Strength Championship of the Universe Group Ride. I expected it to just be sort of a goof ride, but it actually was a competition!

We started the event with a race near the registration tent - 25 pushups followed by a sprint around the port-o-potties and skills tent. With that "warmup" behind us, we headed into the woods.

The subsequent challenges were "no dab" competitions through technical sections, accompanied by head-to-head races UP rock gardens. Our group of competitors had a great time scoping out the lines, watching each attempt, and laughing about the ridiculousness of it all. Our fearless leader, Chuck Morris, chose to scattter our bikes for a LeMans start for one of the races. We turned around at the count of three and sprinted aimlessly into the brush to retrieve our bikes before pedaling like mad to ascend the rocky route.



At the end of this series of competitions we returned to the registration tent to tally points. I'd been neck-and-neck with another rider named Josie during the event, but in the end I snuck out the win! More than that, though, I got to meet some awesome riders and will be tasked with leading next year's competition :-)

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Lake Moomaw & Jackson River Trail (Hot Springs, VA)

Pedaling a rail-to-trail for my birthday weekend has become a favorite tradition. Originally, it was enjoyed by my wife & myself, plus my mother and her husband. Eventually, though, my brother and his girlfriend decided to join us for the ride. Each year I try to find a new section of crushed-gravel trail to enjoy. This time I landed on the Jackson River Trail near Lake Moomaw in Hot Springs, VA.



Since the trail is so conveniently situated near Lake Moomaw, we decided to tow my jet ski and my stepfather's boat. On friday we spent the day exploring the coves and small islands of the lake, sipping drinks and floating on tubes in the warm sun.



I'd just finished epoxying footholds into my 2012 Superjet, topped off with gray Hydroturf and neon splatter paint to match my '88 650sx.



The ski ran flawlessly and I was even able to coerce my brother into giving it a spin.





The next day we drove to the Natural Well Trailhead, about a quarter of the way down the 14 mile trail. From there we headed to the southern end of the trail, stopping every now and then to take in the scenery and watch the flowing Jackson River as it wound through the woods below us.



We reached the end of the trail in Covington, took a short break for water, then turned around to retrace the 10.5 miles we'd pedaled. On our way back, we dismounted to walk to the swinging bridge.



We'd planned on continuing north to the start of the trail, then back to the cars, but by the time we were back at the Natural Well Trailhead we'd decided we'd rather head back to the AirBnb to dip our feet in the creek while sipping on a cold beer - so we did!

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VCHSS Peninsula Classic (Dinwiddie, VA)

After the supermoto race at VIR, it was time to reconfigure the YZ250. I swapped number plates and wheels, then fitted a new kickstand to the moto. The bike came with Cycra Powerflow plastics, so I had a second set of graphics from SKDA to apply to those parts as well. Within a day, though, the bike was ready for the dirt!

I'd missed a couple VCHSS races (one was during the supermoto), but wanted to make sure to get to this stop, as its venue was only about a thirty minute drive from downtown Richmond. I pulled into the Virginia Motorsports Park around 9am on Sunday, finding some friends to park near. After registration, it was a short ride to the start line where we scoped some of the "moto-style" jumps we'd see for the first time on lap one.

It was obvious that the open sections would be particularly dusty, as we kicked up the silt just walking on them.

As we watched the earlier classes leave the line, my friend Lory & I realized that they were allowing for live-engine starts. When it was our time to go, our entire line started their engines and awaited the green flag. As per usual, I let everyone beat me off the line, immediately losing sight of the ground in a cloud of dust.

As we rounded the first turn, fallen riders emerged from the dust - proof that the holeshot just wasn't worth the effort.

Once in the woods, the logjams began. For some reason (perhaps the tightness of trees), this event seemed to be more prone to congestion. I made my way past a few slower riders, but for most of the first lap we all just simply had to adopt the pace of the slowest rider since room to pass was nonexistent.

Eventually we spread out some, but my intermittent stalls dropped me back into the traffic a couple more times.

After three laps, I saw the checkered flag. My friend Lory was in the front of the pack, so he was able to complete the entire four-lap race, netting a fifth place finish.

During the break between races, I'm going to fit the Rekluse clutch to the YZ in order to eliminate the stalls and hopefully remove one more excuse I have for finishing near the end of our class!



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Supermoto East Coast 2022 (VIR - Alton, VA)

Ever since last year's experience riding supermoto at VIR, I've been looking forward to returning to the track for another round of racing on the asphalt & dirt.

Since I'd replaced my DRZ with a Yamaha YZ250 only weeks before, I was in a bit of a scramble to convert it into Supermoto mode. A second set of plastics meant I could keep my VCHSS number plates and swap over to my SMEC graphics [from SKDA] after applying them. For the wheels, I found a set of Tarazon rims laced to blue anodized hubs on eBay. When they arrived, I set them up for tubeless using 3M 5200, some duct tape & bolt-on valve stems. I changed the oil & filter and drilled the drain & fill plugs while they were removed so that they could be safety wired, along with the brake caliper bolts.

One change that I was incapable of making before the race was swapping the front sprocket for a larger one. On my vstrom, I send a pipe through my mag wheel and trap it on the swingarm. This holds the sprocket still so I can wrench it off. With only spoked wheels on the YZ this method is no longer an option. Impact wrench and rear brake were simply not enough to torque the nut off, so I had to leave the 13t sprocket in place. This resulted in not having QUITE enough speed on the back straight of the course, but otherwise not really an issue.



On Saturday morning, I loaded up the Crosstrek with tools & gear and headed west to VIR. By mid-morning I was unpacking and setting up camp at the kart track.



This time around, my wife was joining me. She arrived that afternoon with the dogs, as did a couple friends and my mother and stepfather. This weekend coincides with MotoAmerica, so convincing others to make the drive is a bit less challenging. The heat this weekend was definitely a factor. Finding shade was critical with the sun directly overhead during the 95 degree day.

Considering the heat, I tried my best to time my donning of the leather tracksuit to avoid sitting around in it for any longer than absolutely necessary. I also made sure to constantly drink water and electrolytes throughout the days of practice and racing.

Once on the track it was clear that I still needed to equip myself with the correct tires, as I chose to fit an 80/20 tire to the rear in hopes of gaining a bit more traction on the dirt section. The lesson learned was that grip on the asphalt is really what matters. In a way, though, it was fun letting the rear "step out" under hard braking. This would have probably required higher speeds had I fitted tackier rubber to the wheels. Luckily I had installed a more road-worthy front tire, so I didn't have any issues washing out in the front.

On the dirt section I attempted all of the jumps except the final double. After witnessing a few riders wreck badly there, I decided that was probably a wise choice.

Last year I competed in SMEC3 (beginner class), so I chose to bump up one level this time to SMEC2 in hopes of joining a larger field of racers. As it turned out, there were only five of us competing in that class. The caliber of riders was significantly higher, as I could only beat out one of the others in order to net a fourth place finish. I will say, though, that I was getting fairly close to the rider in 3rd place during our second moto. Each lap he'd pull away on the asphalt and I'd reel him in on the dirt. When the race was finished, we congratulated each other and laughed about our game of cat and mouse.

After two days in the swealtering heat, I was delighted to pack up the car and blast the AC on my way out of Alton. As I was making my way out of the parking area, Charlie Buffum flagged me down to say goodbye and thank me for making the event. Charlie is easily one of the superstars of this series (in fact, he won EVERY CATEGORY he competed in this weekend!). This is basically equivalent to Axl Rose thanking his concertgoers as they file out of the arena. It just goes to show the overwhelming feeling of inclusivity that this series fosters. Every racer and organizer is approachable and friendly, welcoming the "newbs" into the sport. It's a great time being on the bike, but what's really unique about the series is the mood. Everyone there has a smile from ear-to-ear and the stoke level is palpable. I feel fortunate to have discovered this series and hope to inspire others to give it a try!



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