Black Bear Rampage

Hi everyone,

Rickey here. For those of you who haven't met me yet, let me give a quick introduction. I am a professional mountain bike and cyclocross racer from Fairfield. I race for the Justice Madison Cycles / Scott's Bikes mountain bike team and the Echappe Equipment Cyclocross team. I have been racing pro for 4 years now, and have won the CT Elite u23 state championships and last year, I was ranked as high as 136th in the world for elite men.

I also do a little road racing for Exodus Road racing, and have won the Fitchburg stage race as well as the GA State Road and Criterium championships.

Back to the story at hand, the Black Bear Rampage is a 40 mile mountain bike race in Ducktown, TN put on by Scott's Bikes and Justice Madison Cycles. My weekend started Friday with 13 hours in the car to drive down to Cleveland, TN. Work began Saturday with an easy spin around then off to registration to help fend off the madness.

Sunday was game on. The gun went off and everyone fired out of the start like we were racing 5 minutes. I tucked into second wheel as we came off the road and went into the woods. In the woods, the games begin.

The rider in first place flatted towards the end of the first hour. I would say that this is where the race got really exciting and gripping because I'm in the lead, but it didn't really work that way. I moved into the lead with a rider from another class on my wheel. Then I rode my tempo on the front. Nothing terrible exciting, stayed composed rode a pace that was as fast as I could ride and still make it over the finishing climb with some pop.

Finally, about 90 minutes later, the race got exciting. The finishing climb comes 6 miles before the finish and it is a beast. Not long, but it is steep and loose and you will pay for any mistake that you make with hours of racing in your legs. I worked on staying smooth and made it up without incident. This was the first time I got a gap on the rider who had been glued to my wheel for the entirety of the race. With some free space, I began to drop down the 6 mile descent to the finish. Through the twist in turns, I could see the rider behind me, never really sure exactly how far back he was, so I kept my head down going as fast as I could to the finish.

Coming into the last mile, I risked a look back and thought I was in the clear, knowing all I had coming up was 500 meters or so of paved climb. I make the turn out onto the pavement ready to cruise up and throw my hands in the air, but surprise, the rider rockets out of the woods about 5 seconds back. That's no good, I pray I have one more good surge and put my head down again. I remember from last year that the little finishing speed bump is deceptively hard. There is no way to manage a sprint and hammer it out entirely. My plan to stay smooth and save my sprint payed off as I glanced back to see the rider behind me stand to try to close the gap and promptly sit back down. I made it to the line with enough room to comfortably throw my hands up and enjoy my win.

This year been a bit rough, starting with knee surgery in January, to getting Epstein Barr the beginning of June that limited my riding until mid August, and that really made this even sweeter. It was an awesome feeling to be able to take a victory on basically home turf. The 13 hours in the car to come back on Monday couldn't even knock the smile off my face.

That's it for now, rubber side down.