FOLLYCROSS 2015 RECAP

OH. MAN!! Sunday was such a rad day of gravel thrashing!! I’m still soaking it all up and I didn’t even race. BIG thank you to all who came out and supported this underground backwoods (literally) event for the 3rd year. I fall more and more in love with hosting FOLLYCROSS each year. I believe it was Ms. Brittney Carnell that said (as she was passing for her second lap) “This course is tough! It’s more mental than physical!!” and you’ll find out why below! But before we get to that, here are your FOLLYCROSS 2015 top 3 men’s and women’s:

Men’s Final:

1st – Said Assali (1:46:01)
2nd – Marcus Campbell (1:46:40)
3rd – Hunter Garrison (1:46:42)Women’s Final:

Follycross 3.DOH! Race Report

“Today was another great edition of FollyCross, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite events of the entire year. In fact, it was the only race I did on my cross bike all 2014. Last year I got in a break with Patty from the gun but wound up flatting midway through the last lap and limping in for 2nd. This year, Infinity showed up en masse, and lots of other strong guys did too, so I knew it probably wasn’t going to be a 2-up break from the start-type deal.

What I did expect was that the race would split right away and a small group of contenders would form early, for a couple reasons: First, there was a lot of firepower in the field and the road is narrow, meaning somebody was going to get caught out and gapped off while the pace was high; second, the first 2 miles of the course are some of the most difficult of the entire race. Even though they are mostly flat, with a slight false flat uphill grind section, there are about a million potholes, some of which are spread almost across the entire road (leaving very few good options around them), and many of which can straight-up swallow a bike wheel / person.A few more words about the course, because the course deserves some special recognition: It’s 3 laps of a beautiful 12-mile loop, as close to dead flat as you’re likely to get in Alabama, and has basically every form of surface imaginable: dirt, sand, grass, mud, clay, gravel, thick gravel, heinous tire-destroying bike-eating gravel, hard-pack gravel over churt, concrete drainages, and super sticky nasty red sandy snot / glue mud. The first few miles are basically WWI artillery-barrage crater fields, then there’s a right turn and a brief respite on hardpack with a few tricky lines, then back onto very soft, sticky, nasty mud with a couple bottomless lake-sized potholes, then a gently rising mud and gravel section with 3 minefields of tire-destroying fist-sized gravel, then a few short twists, more mud, then a long, 3-4 mile blast along the river. Late in the race, this last section would get blasted by a pretty solid 10 mph headwind. There aren’t 100 yards anywhere on the course where you aren’t making some sort of decision – dodging rocks, holes, sticks, sand, mud, etc.

Back to the race: I knew from last year that it’s easier to be in front for the first mile or so, given that in many places there’s only 1 halfway-decent line, and only the guy in front can see it. If you’re behind, you’re desperately trying to see around the guys in front of you, hoping they’re taking good lines, bunnyhopping, shimmying, sliding, or brake-checking at the last second when they’re not, and hanging on for dear life while the pace is ramping up into the mid-20s across mud and sand. It can be pretty uncomfortable when your engine is redlined and you slam into a pothole, spin out, and then have to close down a gap to the guy in front across loose gravel and thick mud.So, as soon as we got rolling good, I lifted the pace to a level that felt painful to me and kept it there for a few minutes. That seemed to string out the group behind, and I could hear from the sound of hard breathing, bikes slamming through potholes, and occasional cursing that it was having some effect. After a couple miles I swung over and saw team Infinity more or less intact: Hunter Garrison, Said Assali, Jamie Alexanderr, and Marcus Campbell were all clustered together, with Sam Sam A Porter, Jeff McCord, and a guy I will call Red Kite Prayer Guy (sorry I don’t know your name RPKG) in tow. Jonathan Crain and 1 or 2 others were also with us but the course and pace immediately started causing attrition, and this group of 8 rode the first 8 or 9 miles at a pretty nasty clip.

If you have ever watched professional road racing, FollyCross plays out like the business end of a one-day spring classic: the course is so selective that you have to be right on the front, riding pretty close to full throttle, just to keep from getting caught behind somebody getting dropped / crashed / etc. There is no sitting on, no resting, and nowhere to hide. With wind, potholes, mud, sticks, grass, and gravel everywhere, there are only a few decent lines, and being out of the good line when the guy in front of you is railing it means you’re going to burn lots of matches to get the wheel back, or you’re going to say goodbye to the front of the race.Two thirds of the way through the first lap this situation was playing itself out according to the Belgian playbook: Jamie, Said and I had all traded a few very hard pulls, everybody was pegged and fighting for position (occasionally with elbows and hips), and the group was hanging together by a string, going basically wide open for as long as it could. That’s a great time to attack, so that’s what Hunter did, slingshotting off of one of Sam’s hard pulls and cracking open a gap across the heaviest mud section of the course. With a guy up the road, Infinity looked to the other guys to respond, and RKPG, Jeff, and Sam lifted the pace. They swapped pulls, then RKPG put in a stinging attack that Said quickly covered as we came into a section of several quick linked turns over loose gravel. I knew those turns give you a chance to get out of sight quickly, so as Said reeled RKPG back, I rolled past Jamie and said “Great time to go if you can.” He could, and ripped through the quick turns and rolled straight up to Hunter before any of the non-Infinities could respond. By the end of the lap, Jamie and Hunter had nearly a minute over the remaining 6, and looked to be gone for good. Perfect: 2 Infinities up the road, 1st and 2nd sewn up, right?

Wrong. There was a lot of racing left, and the course was about to do its thing. As we came through the start / finish turn to begin lap 2, Sam Porter took advantage of the tricky, greasy, potholed mud to launch a wicked, monstrous attack, using the same section I had drilled on lap 1, to put the 6-man group of chasers in a world of hurt. Said drilled it to get across to Sam, and Marcus, Jeff and I stayed in contact, barely. Somewhere in here we lost RKPG, whether due to Sam’s attack or a flat I don’t know. We settled back into a rhythm and a few minutes later saw what was for Infinity a huge bummer — Jamie Alexander, probably our biggest engine in the race, on the side of the road with a flat. He was working to change it but his day was ultimately done. This meant that not only had we lost one of our best options to win the race, we had also left Hunter stranded up the road in in a now-doomed solo move with well over an hour of racing left, on an energy-sapping course with a huge headwind. Suddenly our overwhelmingly good odds weren’t so overwhelming.Jeff and Sam kept the pressure on and kept rotating, and the effect of Sam’s big attack and Jeff’s strong pulls quickly brought Hunter back into view as we got into lap 3. With Hunter in sight the chase was on, and Said, Marcus and I realized we needed to reshuffle the deck. I was riding a skinny-tired hardtail mountain bike, which was terrific on the rough and rowdy stuff but not so great on the windy and exposed backside of the course, and my legs weren’t really responding well to the big efforts, so I knew I’d have to lean on Marcus and Said to take over the race. Said took advantage of a super hard pull by Jeff to launch up the road in the muddy power section of lap 2, and Sam chased hard but couldn’t reel him in. Said bridged up to Hunter and the gap started to go back out, but Hunter was feeling his 20 miles off the front and started slipping off Said’s wheel, making him a big target for Sam and Jeff to chase. If they could get to Hunter, who was now tantalizingly close, they could probably work together to get Said, so Marcus and I had to make sure they didn’t. I was nearly useless by this point, so I looked to Marcus to save our bacon. I could see that Sam was still feeling his big pursuit of Said, so I asked Marcus to hit the gas. Marcus took off and Jeff chased him down. We regrouped, and I saw Sam struggle to close back up to us, so I asked Marcus to go again. This time Marcus immediately got daylight and quickly bridged up to Hunter, who was still dangling in no-man’s land, dying 1000 deaths in the wind, and they promptly got to work prying the gap back open. Jeff flatted somewhere in here, ending his day and leaving Sam the lone remaining non-Infinity in the top 5.

As we rolled into the last 4 miles, the race situation was: Said in front, solo, Marcus and Hunter together about 30-45 seconds back, and then Sam and me another 20 seconds back. Sam dug deep and started reeling Marcus and Hunter in, getting them to within 5 seconds at one point, but the headwind along the river sucked the last of his energy dry and we finished in more or less that order, with me slipping past Sam, cramping in both hamstrings, for a lucky 4th.I can’t end this without giving a hat tip and lots of respect to Sam and Jeff, who kind of ran into a bit of an Infinity buzz saw — outnumbered 4 or 5 to 2 all day — but still raced their guts out and made it a very close, very hard race all the way to the end. I hate to think what might have happened if they’d been able to link up together in the chase during the end-game; unfortunately for Jeff the Tire Fates were against him, giving us some karmic relief for taking Jamie out of the break of the day.

It was a great day for our entire team, with Jennifer Assali and Andie Thompson pulling the 1-2 in the Women’s race and our guys going 1-4. But it was a great day, period — everybody I saw had a huge smile on their face (although I did not see Jamie after his second flat, so maybe have to throw a caveat in there) and all seemed to really enjoy the event.

Matt Pittman, we love FollyCross and can’t wait for FollyCross Number The Fourth. If you put on a race, Infinity’s going to show up. Thanks again — to you, to all the many wonderful volunteers and sponsors, and to our German turbo-diesel Timo Stark who rode the lead pace moto (and maybe rooster-tailed us a few times). Good times had by everybody. Let’s do it again real soon.” – Jacob

This man is a wordsmith to say the least. Folk like himself are one of the many reasons I host this race year after year. So many people dig deep into their pain caves and always come out with a smile on their face.

Here’s a few more fun snaps of said post pain cave fun faces: