The day started with Chris Bennett picking me up from my house at 6am. We headed straight to Huddle House to get our Big House on. We both polished ém off, because we knew we had a long day ahead of us. After all that eating, we headed to the shop to get ready for a day in Pisgah and hunting for 5 check points. Chris wanted to put on some slightly more aggressive tires, so we mounted up some Specialized Sauserwinds. It was the tread for the day, seeing how we were both rockin' them. Our game plan was to go for all the check points first. In years past, it has always been won by getting all the check points. So that's what we did. And it worked.

We got there with ten minutes to spare. We went straight to the gear check line to get checked in. After showing them all our goods, we were allowed to go get our number plates. Dan Ennis walked up to me and asked if I'd seen Justin, his teammate. Justin showed up with about 3 minutes to spare. After we dropped our pint glasses in Kell's car, we headed back over to where the riders' meeting was going to be held. After the riders' meeting, I went and got our map with the checkpoints and off-limits areas. This was one of the funniest starts you could ever watch. When he says, "go", some folks just started riding up Black Mnt. trail and the rest were frantically opening Pisgah maps. We opened our map and looked at where we needed to get to. The way Eric set up the check points, there were quite a few good routes.

Once we got rolling up Black Mnt. trail, we had to roll though some traffic before clear sailing. Once we got to Maxwell Cove Rd., Dan and I talked about our two route ideas. We both agreed that going Turkey Pen Gap was going to be the the best way to go. We got to Turkey Pen and rolled down to our first checkpoint. Then we headed to Squirrel Gap for checkpoint 2. On our way to checkpoint 2, we ran into Bob K. and Dennis H. and Team Dicky- two of the fast teams- going the other way. Oh No!!! did I pick the wrong route? Thatwas when the fun started in my head! We headed on to Horse Cove and to Yellow Gap Rd. At that point, we had 3 options. We decided to pick the hardest out of the 3 to get it done with. So we headed up Pilot to the our 3rd checkpoint. Then we headed straight back down Pilot. It was so much fun to rip down Pilot with Chris, Dan and Justin. Dan and Justin were headed back in to Turkey Pen, so we headed over to Wash Creek Rd. Getting up and over Yellow gap twice tested our souls a good bit. Once we got past that, I knew we didn't have any long climbs for a while. We headed out to 276 and to 475b. On 475b, we saw Chad and Micheal heading to the same checkpoint that we were. At the end of 225, I was pumped to see Ray(one of the shop regulars) and Dan(Chris's dad). After we got our map stamped, we knew the last part was going to be fun. On our way back to 225, we saw Team Dicky heading to the 225 checkpoint. I knew then that we where ahead of them. We headed back out to 276 and turned onto 477 and then straight to the Horse stables. We had one last test in our way(Clawhammer Rd. to Maxwell Cove Rd.). We eased onto the bottom of Clawhammer Rd. and started picking up the pace as we got closer and closer. When we got onto Black Mnt. Trail, we could taste the the finish. At the top of Hickory Knob, we knew it was all downhill from there. Chris lead the charge back to the finish. We had no clue how we did until we finished. We pulled out the win!!! We went 76.25 miles and 14,770 feet of climbing.

Get Some Chad!!!

Dan P. and Justin taking it to the house.

Chris showing me all the tricks the kids are doing.

TDS in full effect.

How it all played out.