Massanutten-Tour de Burg

A family vacation occassionally gives us a cheap week long condo at Massanutten over July 4th holiday. Just so happens the cliquey Harrisonburger MTBs gather for an annual reunion, including their hometown Trek pros, of epic riding during this week. We've stumbled into their event before, but this time did it on purpose. In between the Tour de Burg, we did a lot of hiking, jogging and riding on our own, with plans to stop for 2 WV races on our way back to Pgh. The trails and mountains here are a lot of fun.

Tour de Burg-what is it? what is it not?
not for the weak, weary or whiny
is only gratifying for the strongest

not aimed at providing recreational riders a glorious day in the woods
is top talent oriented

not a supported event to cater to your comforts
is stict with time checks and sag wagon deglorifying, maybe a PB&J if you ask nicely or look like you are going to faint

not having marshalls wait all day for slackers
is quick to point out the losers and direct them to immediately take short cuts back to the start/finish

That said, Tour de Burg can offer some challenging fun if you are up to it. This Tour is several days of stage events, point accumulation leading to the 'champions' in a jesterous way among old buddies. So, to say the least we feel like outsiders here but otherwise the gang is fast and friendly.

Stages include: 2 MTB time trials, 2 Road Epics, 2 MTB Epics

Mixing this with our vacation, and knowing I can't race all these in one week or even do all meagerly and keep up, we pick to do the time trials and 1 MTB Epic day. Justin could have done more, but being we are leaving here for 2 WV races this weekend, it would take a lot of energy out of us for our planned weekend races.

Tues-MTB Mass Ravine Time Trial #1:
Up Massanutten mountain and back down on the dual slalom course. Average times ~45 minutes. Fun, fast evening to get the adrenaline flowing for the Tour and set the standings.
Wed-MTB Elliots Knob Epic #1:
This totals ~40 miles of mountainous up/down singletrack with a few sections of fire road to help you reach the top easier. The ridge riding is fast and fun, and not all on the popular trails so some jaggers and slightly unmaintained conditions exist. This is where I reach the sag wagon time cut off by the skin of my teeth, as the group is chomping to take off, I crawl in and faced with the 2 second decision of bailing or attempting to hold on. This being near the top, I would find it silly to sag wagon it down! I quickly ask if I can follow the trail at my pace for awhile and short cut out? They give me some quick directions and the pack is off, Justin keeping up well. After another 10 miles or so, I lose most of the racing pack, reach the short cut downhill and coast back to the car. The group arrives about an hour later, heading out to dinner/party. We decide to bail on the partying, and crash for a good night of vacation sleep.
Thurs-Rocktown Time Trial #2:
The gang has been out all day on the Road Stage, they are beat but up for the short quick time trial planned in community park. This is cute twisty trails all mazed up with a pump track and some rocks thrown in. Also funny start with a run to your bike. We start in order of Tour standing, meaning I start near end since not doing the whole tour. Avergage times ~15 minutes. I end up flatting not even 1/2 way through, and so decide to run to finish as fast as I can. Since I was a late starter the pack didn't want to wait for me to finish, I was sad to see the last of them packing it up back to town for the party and the timer person gone! Others flatted too but they were on course sooner and got finish times. Well, at least I got a good run in and practice carrying my bike for a few miles :-)

That's the last we saw of the Tour folks, as we then got ready to head to our races in WV.
(see next post). We had fun, and next time in town will hopefully be able to do some of these again. Thanks for letting us tag along to check out some cool trails!

http://www.svbcoalition.org/events/tdb/?page=results&year=2008
http://www.mtntouring.com/mountain/htm/home/page_home.htm