June 7, 2009
Janice and I travelled to Virginia for the weekend for the 21st annual Hoo-Ha. The 2-lap race was held on a course that covered 12.5 miles and took approximately an hour and 20 minutes to complete at race pace. The first 50 minutes was a gnarly single track climb with about 30 minutes of ripping sweet downhill. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of level ground - one of the best race courses on the East Coast!
We arrived at around 4pm on Saturday and started our pre-ride. We reached the peak at around 5pm - right when the Super D was going off. Watching the pros come down through the rockiest section of downhill at race speed was impressive! Shawn Withers looked like he had a nice run going on his singlespeed. After waiting for the 50 or so Super D elite racers to go through we finished our pre-ride and headed for the hotel at the ski resort. The weather was beautiful and the resort is spectacular, definitely a place to go for a long weekend of riding and relaxing.
For guided rides through the region contact:
http://www.mtntouring.com/mountain/htm/home/page_home.htm
Race morning came and we were up late and made it to the venue with about 15 minutes to warm up. The pros went off and then everyone else a minute later. A mass start with everyone going off at once! This made for a very hectic first climb, having to work through a couple hundred riders on a very tough uphill that being in the woods, hadn't had a chance to dry out from the rains earlier in the week. I finally got clear about 3/4ths of the way up the climb. I enjoyed the decent to complete the first lap and then back up for 50 minutes. I finally caught the leader in my age group with about 10 minutes left to the top and had a steady ride down to hang on for the win. Janice ended up finishing 2nd in her catagory after being surprised at the mass start and starting last.
Results and pics by ITMexposures can be found at:
http://massresort.indigofiles.com/HooHa_09_results.PDF
http://www.itmexposures.com/Sports/805304
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