This week the Spider and I met up with Jeff Shalk (Trek East Coast Factory team) at out buddie Ian Davidson's in sunny Clemson SC. We logged some 25 hrs this week and did the toughest loop in Clemson (trails) twice on tuesday! Ouch.
There is a weekly Saturday ride that rolls out from the house of the host at 9 on the dot. . Not only is Ian masters World Champion for X-terra, he is a master Chicken chef and can cook while he is riding. The key to this ride is staying on a brisk schedule but not too fast as to attain the perfect slow cook for the chicken. Truly one the nice things about comming to camp is the social hangout after the chicken ride.
Below is Ian's E-mail that he sends out about Saturday ride. Check it out. For now it is some big hrs here in the Burg.
Later: Jeremiah
A very eventful Chicken Ride # 12 took place on Saturday January 28th with 14 Chicken Riders in the pack. Should have taken note of ominous air when the morning temperatures predicted by the weatherman were off by a whopping 9 degrees. A low of 37 degrees was in the forecast, but it was 28 degrees at 8a.m. when Zdenek started his 1 hour pre Chicken Ride Trans Rockies training. That 1 hour in the cold would later come back to haunt Z. We started with 30 degrees and sunny skies, but with quickly warming temperatures. Bunkhouse Training Camp Campers and pro's, Jeremiah Bishop, Nick Waite and Jeff Schalk joined us for our ritual. They being on a super charge training program decided that they would do the Chicken Ride on their mtn bikes with full knobby tires. Also joining us and becoming the first woman to complete the Chicken Ride was one of United States fastest women mtn bikers, Sue Haywood. Sue arrived at the Essex Drive Training Cabin a couple of days earlier. She had the decency to ride her road bike.
Before the first Check Point, NathOn mentioned that he could feel some competitive spirit in the air. No sheit Sherlock. We have the pro guys starting to move to the front of the pack and pushing the pace on their rumbling knobby tire mtn bikes, along with a world class female pro, this all enough to get everyone wired up to defend their pride by raising their performance. About 1 hour in to the ride the chef was barking at Clint and Zdenek for not being a good host by giving our front riding guest the proper directions at turns in the course. 50 minutes later, most of which was a constant rather hardish all out effort that blitzed the middle section of the Chicken Ride Loop, the chef could hardly care if our pro friends knew the turns and secretly wished that they would make a wrong turn to make them use extra energy to get back on course or maybe just to disappear all together!
At the top of the cow farm hill on Shackelburg, Zedenek absolutely exploded and was left behind to crawl the remaining 20 miles back on his own. We used a sundial to time his effort for the 55 mile loop, three sticks and a bunch of pebbles was the duration of his ride. The chef and Billy were well in the rear as they started up the 2mile climb to Five Forks. Chicken Riders were spread out before them on the hill further than the eye could see. Billy gloomily moaned that he was going to do A Ride Of Shame and short cut back home that he was not feeling too great. However, when the chef shifted into bigger gears, stood up and began the methodical pounding up the climb to close the gaps, Billy went with him. They picked up a couple packs of two and soon they were all making a last gasp effort to get back with the front of the ride. Every body got back together at Check Point 2 when the lead pack circled up and waited. Circled up and waited so they could pound us one more time on the last leg of the loop. Over all a tough quality type effort which yielded the 4th fastest time in the 6 year history of The Chicken Ride.
RIDERS: Zdenek, Ian, John F, Billy, NathOn, Eric, Charly, Clint, Abhay, Greg, Jeremiah,
Nick, Jeff, Sue
Check Points: Ride #12 59:15 50:24/1:49:39 1:00:50/2:50:28
Ride #11 Reverse. No Splits 2:57:00 (53miles)
Ride #10 1:03:36 56:06/1:59:43 1:08:25/3:08:08
Ride #9 1:04:37 58:50/2:03:26 1:06:00/3:09:26
Ride #8 1:01:21 55:43/1:57:05 1:05:32/3:02:37
Ride #7 1:03:48 56:33/2:00:21 1:04:18/3:04:39
Ride #6 1:06:14 58:37/2:04:52 1:10:00/3:14:52
Ride #5 1:03:28 55:17/1:58:45 1:07:34/3:06:20
Ride #4 1:04:08 57:46/2:01:54 1:05:58/3:07:53
Ride #3 1:03:36 56:56/2:00:32 1:06:10/3:06:42
Ride #2 1:01:54 55:44/1:57:38 1:17:51/3:15:30 (58miles)
Ride #1 1:04:27 57:27/2:01:55 1:06:00/3:07:54
CHICKEN RIDE OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION
The pro riders from the "north", sure whipped the butts of us regular Chicken Riders that reside here in the south in Clemson, SC. They sure showed great talent, toughness and fitness. I believe that all of us felt that in the end it would be a tough day for the pro riders trying to keep up with us on their mtn bikes especially if we turned the screws a few gentle turns here and there during the ride. Any screw turning that we did only resulted in our cries of UNCLE and mercy. Yes we were humbled, but we were not impressed that they could out ride us while we were on road bikes and them on knobby tire mtn bikes. Why weren't we impressed with their efforts? Well..........
CHICKEN RIDE TOP TEN
Why We Were Not Impressed With Their Efforts
10. Their mtn bikes are lighter than our road bikes.
9. They some how managed to disguise their road tires to look like big fat knobby tires.
8. Their bikes are more expensive than ours.
7. Their power meters are actually miniature motors.
6. Their bikes and cars have matching paint schemes.
5. They get paid to do this stuff.
4. Usually humble and helpful, they had to show us up in front of Sue.
3. Regina or Melissa probably promised to bake them some cookies if they worked us over.
2. They had a practice 7 hour ride the day before.
And the number 1 reason why we were not impressed with their efforts. Drum roll please.
DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
1. They rode the entire 55 mile loop on the pavement instead of the grassy shoulder.
posted by Jeremiah Bishop # 9:17 PM 
