We had been trying all year to make it to ride the trails at Windrock. Every time we made plans something always came up at the last minute to keep us from ripping that little slice of downhill heaven in Eastern Tennessee. It was the beginning of November and we decided that if we didn’t make our way now the next opportunity to ride would be next spring. Steve-O, C-Los and I took an early out from work on Friday and loaded up the trucks to hit the road.
A landslide had blocked I-40 into Tennessee so we were forced to take a detour. A trip that usually takes three hours turned into a five and a half hour odyssey. We finally made it to the camp site and set up our tents around 11:00pm. After a rather chilly night in the Tennessee mountains we drove into town and fueled up for the day. By the time the first shuttle was set up the sun had come out and the air had lost its chill. It seemed as if trail conditions were going to be prime but Windrock has a funny way of changing things up in a hurry.
Windrock is pretty well known for its seriously demanding terrain. It’s a good idea to feel confident in your ability to hit 6+ drops, 15+ foot gaps and near vertical roll ins before you get into some of the advanced trails. They’re steep and technical with little room for error. This reputation has inspired many of the sport’s top riders such as Shaums March, Robbie Bourdon, Eric Porter and Kirt Voreis to stop and sample the trails while touring the east coast. On this particular day the fall leaves were over six inches deep making for some super sketchy conditions. This was a subtle detail we overlooked when planning this trip. Besides the lack of traction, it became near impossible to pick a good line where the leaves were really deep. It was pretty weird to be riding behind someone who has both the front and back brakes locked while still gaining speed down the hill. Needless to say we spent a lot of time clearing out the run ins and run outs of drops and gaps before hitting anything.
On a riding day with good conditions Windrock has always been a test of my personal limits. Things were going great and I was actually able to push myself past what I thought I could do until the last fifty yards of the last run of the day. While pedaling into the final gap the bike got loose on me and I ended up getting close and personal with the trail. Once I finally got out of my post wreck daze and took a look at the bike I noticed the crank set was bent. After further inspection we were all surprised to find out that the weld holding the bottom bracket to the frame had failed. This caused my crank arm to lock up on my swing arm sending me into my stem and front fork…ouch. Nothing like a five and a half hour car ride with a hipper the size of a soft ball. The best I can figure is that somewhere up the hill I had cracked the weld and the force of standing on the pedals while sprinting toward the gap finally caused it to fail.
No regrets though…even with the wreck this still ended up being one of my best trips to Windrock in a long time. On a side note, major props to Haro Bikes. They had a new warranty frame out to me within two weeks at no charge! Not too many photos from this trip. I was too busy just trying to keep my s#!t together down the mountain all day to take pictures!