Here are some of our thoughts, quotes, etc. from our trip last weekend to the Snake Creek Gap Time Trial!

​After a great summer with my  KSD/FMBR friends, I decided to sign up for Trainer Road and the Snake. Corianne was going to do it again. Since I had such an adventure doing the Mohican 100K with her, I thought that this is the next adventure! The idea of a road trip to Georgia also seemed like a good time! It certainly was. Spending time with Sydney, Mike and Jim made the long trip seem short. Here are my thoughts at different points. ~Lisa

I just knew Lisa would love the diversity of the trail and we always have a great time riding and pushing each other so I convinced her she needed to register and trail for this epic event! ... that coincided with quadrupling the amount of people who decided to get bitten! ~Corianne

The trip started by everyone meeting at Josh's house...we then piled into three vehicles - we were even running early... until Shep got locked in Josh's house....ask him about that one!!

Before we left….. 
" Can't wait to try these sweet wheels." " How many mochiko bars and potatoes will Jim and I need?"  " I need to hydrate more." " How many times will I get to go to the bathroom?" " I can't forget the cookie bags!"  "This is going to be fun!" ~Lisa

On the way down: " Where are my shoes?"  " I'm pretty sure I packed my gortex socks…"  "Jim is looking at his phone again to see the stupid weather." " Sydney has an interesting frog." ( ask her about it sometime) " I'm not sure I understand the water ball concept". " I'm hungry." " How long does it take this guy to buy a lottery ticket?" " I should watch more B movies……maybe."  " Thank God we are stopping! " " I really don't think there is a Jimmy John's here." " I can't believe Dicky ate all the cookies."   " This is a great time…" ~Lisa

We decided to bring along some walkie talkies to help pass the time...those were some interesting conversations! Taking turns putting the new unicorn out the window to scare people...Josh playing with knives ... and me playing with photo apps on my phone...herding cats at the rest stops and not letting Shep pick the gas stations. ~Corianne

At bike shop:  " Why is Josh drinking from a gallon jug in the bike shop?" " I need a fender…" " Georgia bike shops come with watermelon moonshine on the side…!!" ~Lisa

The guys at Bear Creek Bicycles are amazing - gave lots of good advice, stayed open late for all us crazy MTBers, advised us of trail conditions and of course supplied us with anything we may have forgotten on our 10 hour journey! and... they have a bike shop dog... that Dicky was playing dog whisperer with - she could not get enough of Dicky. ~Corianne

We then headed off to dinner... 12 nervous mountain bikers filling up at Longhorn. ~Corianne

At dinner: " Holy crap, we are SO loud."  "  Dicky ate his steak already! Amazing!" ( It was truly amazing.) " Did Jim really just take Dicky's steak bone out of his hand and start chewing on it???"  " The mountain biking subculture is certainly unique…"  " This is a great time! " ~Lisa

Lots of prepping in the room before the race ... we got our race packets and did any last minute preparations. We even got on Facebook and had an amazing good luck message from a teammates daughter, Lauren - wishing us all good luck!! ~Corianne

During the race: " I'm so happy Corianne is riding with me!!!! "  " This is so much fun!"  " This dude from Florida is wearing a snowsuit. Holy cats!" Good save Corianne! x5 " (She had the best saves I've seen!)  "  " Ok I'm starting to get tired" " I wonder how the guys are doing?" " What do you mean you have never ridded an off-camber trail?!?" ( There was a man who said those words to me)    " I can ignore this pain, right?"  " I'm running out of leg gas."

​ "These downhills are awesome!!!"   "I think my triceps are going to fall out." (Long downhill)  " I guess that dude shouldn't wear new kits." ( A guy wrecked into a bush/tree between Corianne and me. He proceeded to kick the bush and MF everything. He tore his shorts and was LIVID!) " It IS NOT RAINING"   " Is that the radio tower!!!! SOOOOO happy! I'm over these rocks!"   " This is really a great time! " ~Lisa

Somehow I never hit the ground .. I had lot of close calls and many bruises on my legs from my bike, but like Lisa said, lots of good saves!  I thanked her for riding with me just after the 1/2 way point - I knew she'd still be having fun at this point. I also warned her that it's going to get tough .. mentally and physically with about 8.5 miles to go! We toughed it out - riding many of the rock gardens...and of course not riding the one where the photographer (MKocher Photography - he takes amazing pictures - support local photographers!) was ... HA! I told him to hold up a second and let Lisa catch up for a group shot of us holding our bikes on top that crazy rock garden! ~Corianne

So the road to the 2016 Snake Gap Started here....the finish line of the 2015 Snake Gap

Andy, Shep, and I earned our second belt buckle we love this race and this is a must do for us every year.  Dustin just came down to see the hoopla and without a buckle for his effort had to come back but Corianne...sweet innocent Corianne brought her own buckle back to Ohio and for some reason Corianne telling other teammates how much fun she had carried more weight than when Andy and I tell people how awesome it is. So next week there will be ten of us traveling 10 hours south to make another go.  Let alone the logistics of herding cats and bathroom breaks the trip down will be an adventure itself! Just as this conversation broke out as I type this blog:

So anyway the training tour for the 2016 The Snake TT announced that they were reducing the event to two races but adding a fifty mile option, as if 34 miles in January wasn't ridiculous enough the lure of fifty miles and a bigger beltbuckle makes the decision a no brainer to me.  To put it in perspective of local Ohio folk the fifty mile numbers wise is like the Mohican 100k, but 90% singletrack and real mountains in January.....

Most of us really don't want to drive ten hours to have a really bad day on the bike, none of us are winning anything it's about completing and not feeling like crap for 80% of it so that meant sacrificing our nice El Nino weather and riding the trainer, all of us joined trainer road and picked proper plans so at least we would be able to measure how much it was worth being stuck inside and taking the ridicule of everyone who was outside riding.  

Most of the KSD crew is spread out throughout North East Ohio so to be fair every Sunday someone would hosts a ride local to their area to be fair with the commuting, from Mohican, Akron, Lisbon, Bolivar, Canton, and one crazy day trip to Rothrock we got to see lots of different sites over the last few months.

And proof of what happens when cyclist drink together...even if they aren't riding they end up on bikes anyway...a tournament broke out at the FMBR/KSD Skratch labs party of who could climb a hill the fatest in Zwift world.  Flat pedals, no bike adjustments, and extra high fives if you drank during your run.  It went something like this...

 Well that's it we'll know how all this worked out for us about this time next week but either way we've had fun so far leading up to it!

And for those keeping score here is who is going and the distance they are doing wish us luck!
Kenny 50
Andrew 50
Tim 50
Dicky 50
Jim 34
Josh 34
Dustin 34
​Michael 34
Corianne 34
Lisa 34