Porky Gulch

The weekend is almost here and one of my favorite races is this weekend- Porky Gulch Classic Stage Race. This will be the second year of this race, but to say it's only been around for two years would be a bit of a misnomer. A bunch of years ago I was working with Miah who used to own the Red Jersey Cyclery, we would brainstorm events and then go put them on. One of the first we did was the original Story Land Crit, which turned out to be one of those events where there weren't a ton of people but the legend of the race spread and a lot more people talk about having raced in the original then were actually there- it was pretty cool. To get a feel for the course go take a look at Story Land- imagine racing your road bike through these paths at speed (and without Mom's with strollers)- pretty fun!
Story Land Here's a shot from the last years crit, the guy in the back is me 20lbs ago hoping to catch back on to enjoy a bit of draft on the front straight:

That same year we put on the original RockPile Rampage v1.0. This was our first take at putting on a cross race and we thought the more barriers the better. We built up what became known as the barriers of consequence- as if you fell on one your were going to get hurt! Wide oak planks with the edges sharp as a pair of skis fresh off a Miah tune. We had barriers everywhere, I think we used like 15 or so- pretty funny.
Jason from Hurricane Mt Sport clearing the famed barriers of consequence:

So over the course of a few years I wanted to get out of the organizing side and I wanted to focus on the racing part. GGTOC took over the events and last year we came up with the idea of doing a stage race and starting things off with a TT up the first two miles of the famed Mt. Washington Auto Road. Hence the birth of the Porky Gulch Classic Stage Race. Ok we don't ride to the top of Washington but it still feels like this:


I'm hoping this weekend we'll see at least one other TWAF jersey starting on Saturday morning, but we'll see. NK hasn't been on a bike in months so racing may not be the best idea for him. JJ and A1 both have been working on excuses so we'll see where that all goes! Oh well.

Here's a cool shot- why you don't throw beer on a CX racer early in the race- they may remember it and give you a nice "thank you" later in the race:


That's it for this morning, now go out and ride.

DEA