Whew! February has come and gone fast. Snake Creek Gap happened, but I didn’t feel like braving the cold again so I didn’t. Congrats to all of those amazing souls who did. Asheville On Bikes held their annual Bike Love party and it was awesome! Here is a link to my favorite photographer’s website and blog. He made a video of his stop-motion project at the party. I think it’s worth a watch or two! Endless sent out our blue haired superhero. FUN!
Jeff Zimmerman Bike Love 2010 Stop-Motion Video
I’ve done some babysitting, gone to some baby showers, run the bike shop, ordered and sold cogs, made lots of spoke cards and just tried to chill through the chilly winter. I’m hoping for warm weather in Dalton this weekend for the final race of Snake Creek Gap. Should be an interesting day… I’m taking some of these too.
I also have information that Carey Lowrey may be racing Snake Creek Gap in the money class on her single speed. That’s what i hope she is going to decide anyway.
I also mailed some Kick-Ass Cogs to Harlan Price last week! Yahoo! Two really awesome people, bike racers and just all around good badasses are riding EndlessBikeCo. products. That’s what I like to hear.
In other news, Tom Parsons was able to head out to Arizona for SSUSA this year. I hear that might be one of his last single speed races until SSWC10 in New Zealand as he is gonna try out gears this year. I think he’ll be back. At least someone is gonna represent for me at SSWC10 since I’m not going to make it.
I’ll report back soon. Thanks for reading!
I guess you may have noticed by now that the website has a slightly new look and the blog posts directly to the website. I think this is awesome! I would like to thank Todd Heckeler the owner of consume:design. Thank you Todd! You rock!!!
Well, it’s been two weeks now and I’m finally thawed from Snake Creek Gap. Why was I frozen? 
The temperature never made it over 30 maybe 25 and as you can see from the photo I chose to walk the creek.
“Yes, Shanna” you say “but it looks like you have trash bags on your feet.” I did. As soon as the bottom of my shoes hit the bottom of the river, the bags had holes and my feet were wet. I stopped about 30 minutes later to take care of my feet. I changed my socks which consisted of removing three frozen pair of socks (the socks next to my skin were even frozen), putting a dry pair of socks on and a handwarmer between that pair and the outer frozen sock. My right toes warmed right up and the left ones remained frozen the entire race.
I have had friends ask, “you stopped in the middle of a race to change your socks?” I sure did. I was a whitewater kayaker in a past lifetime and have had lots of frozen toes. I try not to mess around with frozen extremities as I enjoy keeping them all. Call me greedy if you will. I realized in the beginning that this race was going to be really fucking cold but I was there so I might as well make the most of it. That being said, my goal for Snake Creek Gap #1 became to have the most fun (that’s always the goal even when I’m suffering) and be safe. Mission mostly accomplished as I still have some issues with my left big toe being numbish. Next time I’ll wear booties and ride it like Marshall did. My hands, thanks to that prior whitewater life, were so sweaty it was almost unbearable. Notice the pogies in the photo. 1 more plus for single speed and no cold hands here.
Fun though, I had a lot of it! I mean, look what I’m wearing, it’s 2010 bitches and I brought that first 2010 bike race in with
Endless single speed style! I chatted away with lots of the riders that either passed me or I passed. I met some new folks. I saw friends that I only see at this event. I cleaned a lot of the technical ridgeline and thought to myself a lot “wow! I raced this rigid last year?” I spent some energy cheering on the single speeds too. Sorry geary fellas (Marshall included), I cheer for the ladies (I only saw 1 other on the trail) and the single speeds.
Thanks to Mike Tiano for giving Marshall and I a ride in the Pope Mobile, all of the volunteers who ventured out on that really freaking cold day to put on one of my favorite events, the photographers for taking photos, and the racers for being out there getting it. I posted my slowest time yet and I’m registered money class. Right now I’m sitting in dead last by over 40 minutes. I guess I set that bar really, really low.
Hope to see you at the
Icycle on January 31! Oh yeah, I’m also looking for a ride to
SSUSA in February if you know of anyone who has an extra seat and rack. If not, I’ll be back at
Snake #2. Either way, it’s gonna be fun and
EndlessBikeCo is a sponsor of both!
Hey blog fans, the year is almost over so here’s a catch-up of what’s been going on.
I finished
Swank this year with the time in the photo!
Youngblood beat me by 5minutes and 5seconds. I placed 3rd on my single speed and my time placed me 38th overall!
EndlessBikeCo. sponsored athlete and all around good guy
Thom Parsons came down from
Massachusetts to placed 3rd overall on his single
speed! I’m so proud of Thom. Photo by Laura Goetz
The
Pisgah Brew Crew was out in full force cheering racers on at the bottom of Farlow Gap and my number 1 fan Laura Goetz was there as well. Check out these photos!
As I expected, I was the only person in a tutu and only one person asked me “What’s up with the tutu? Don’t you know Halloween’s over? He doesn’t know shit and I’m pretty sure I beat him. With the
Brew Crew on Farlow though, I was not the only person with an awesome outfit! Photos by Laura Goetz, The Living Pixel and an unknown Brew Crew member.
In November
Marshall put on a “Fuck It, Fry It” party. What is that you ask? Well we fried whatever anyone brought. Here’s a photo of some of the things that went into the turkey fryer. Bacon wrapped chicken wings, bacon coated bacon, turkey, oreo cookies, flour tortillas, mini snickers, wontons… lots of things. It was a good party, but the grease hangover lasted far longer than, well… I would have liked. The guy at the Red Cross Platelet Donation center the next day was not to happy with me either, but I donated the platelets successfully nonetheless. We did have one casualty when Otto crashed a bike on the way back from a cream cheese run! The cream cheese arrived at the party safely and Otto made it back for dinner with a broken collar bone after the ER visit too! What a trooper. Photo by Phil Shaw
Laura and I had an impromptu pie party! Rode Black Mountain Trail in great outfits on a Sunday! She was wearing a home made bear suit and a nice
dress cause it was Sunday and there is no hunting on Sundays. Sorry we didn’t get a photo with the bear ears and armies! Good lookin’ photo nonetheless.
We had Thanksgiving with friends! I’m thankful for all of them. Photo by Laura Goetz
In December we experienced a snowstorm which is rare for Asheville. Laura, myself and the crew spent a lot of time riding bikes in the snow and enjoying each others company in this rare (for Asheville) winter splendor, we also helped
Justin put on the
Holidaze Alleycat! We had reindeer games in the back yard. I always wanted to be a reindeer with wings and look, Laura really can fly! Photos by myself and Justin Mitchell
Well, that’s all for now. Getting ready for the
Snake Creek Gap Time Trial Series in Dalton, GA
which will be Saturday January 2, Saturday February 6, and Saturday March 6.
The weather man (whomever that is) calls for 36degrees on Saturday as of today with rain and snow showers on Friday.
Good thing I have a “HOT” outfit for the race! It’s gonna be so much FUN! Report soon. Ciao!
Well, one of my favorite Pisgah races happens in 3 days and after a week of not knowing… I’m in! The Swank 65. Of course, I’ll be racing single speed and again I’ll be breaking out the tutu. This race is going to be awesome! Check it out! Oh and the Green Race is this weekend too! Hope you get to make it out to one of these local extreme events or at least get to have one of your own. Love!
