The Burn 24 Hour Mountain Bike Challenge (May 26th-27th)

Team Flying Dog @ The Burn

3rd Place in Coed Duo (Photo by Mabe Photography)

By Andie Lesondak:

The Burn 24 Hour Race at the Dark Mountain Trails in Wilkesboro, NC took place this year without any rain.  WOOHOO!  So we had EXCELLENT course conditions with some speedy lap times, however, we had some pretty intense heat.  Even the night laps were hot (I was stopping at the aid station still at 1:30am to dump cold water over my head).  There was some GPS and bike computer discrepancy, but we estimated the course was approximately 7-7.5 miles long with somewhere between 800-1000 ft of climbing per lap.

A bunch of the Flying Dog crew from MD attended the race with Mike & I this year, making for a VERY FUN race and campsite.  As a whole, we represented Team Flying Dog with 3 sub-teams: Coed Duo (Mike & Me), 3 Man Team (Herb, Jay & Justin), and 4 Person Coed (Di, Mountour, Jason & Harbin).  Mike and I finished in 3rd place for Coed Duo again this year.  We were shooting for 2nd, but we definitely had some stiffer competition - my main competition being a wonderful woman, Zoe, from here in the NC Triangle area.  She is an amazing rider and once I saw her on race morning, I knew it was going to be tough to even get close to a 1st place finish.  Anywho, Mike and I had set some other goals for ourselves throughout the race this year.  I wanted to do 10 laps this year (I did 8 last year) and Mike wanted to do 12 laps this year (he did 11 last year).  We also wanted to both try to keep riding through the night this year, and for me personally, I wanted no upset tummy problems during the race this year.  Well, we did it!  We hit every single one of our goals.  Mike pulled MOST of the night laps, but I was able to pull some of the tough hour laps as well (around the 1am-3am time frame - the alien, light show laps).  We both managed to get a little shut eye (poor Mike got WAY less sleep than me), with our only major problem being saddle sore this year.  HOLY COW did our rumps take a beating!  But we both felt strong overall, and we were so happy to reach our goals.  I think I speak for both Mike and I when I say a HUGE thanks to our friends and teammates for riding this year.  We could NOT have done it without you guys!!  The team REALLY helped pull us through the race this year, always waiting for us so we didn’t have to do laps alone, and pulling/pushing us out on the course.  What a great race!!  Congrats to the rest of Team Flying Dog for their AMAZING race performances!  And Congrats to our friends in the Triangle who had GREAT races as well (James & Jeff - 2 Man team who won 2nd, and  Zoe & Brad - coed duo competition who won 1st)!  Thanks to BikeTriad, James, my Mom & Mabe Photography for the pics from the race!  :)

    Andie (Photo by Bike Triad)                                                                                  Mike (Photo by Mabe Photography)

Jay (Photo by Mabe Photography)

    Herb                                                                                 Justin                                                      (Both Photos by Mabe Photography)



     Di                                                                                  Harbin                                                       (Both Photos by Mabe Photography)

    Jason (Photo by Bike Triad)

Some Team Stats:

• Mike’s Fastest Lap - 42:51 minutes
• Andie’s Fastest Lap - 50:44 minutes (Another goal I had - to do at least one sub-1-hour lap)
• Mike & Andie completed 22 laps total, placed 3rd in Coed Duo, & placed 65th overall out of 132 teams
• Montour rode all 4 night laps straight for the 4 person coed team
• Jason had the fastest lap time for the 4 person coed team - 49:33 minutes
• Jason & Montour each rode 6 laps
• Di rode 5 laps and Harbin rode 4 laps
• The 4 person coed team completed 21 total laps & placed 68th overall out of 132 teams
• Justin had the fastest lap time for the 3 man team - 44:20 minutes
• Justin rode 8 laps
• Herb & Jay each rode 6 laps
• The 3 man team completed 20 laps & placed 71st overall out of 132 teams

Duryea Downhill Race (May 12th-13th)

By Jason Rudy:


Ian and I represented the Flying Dog Downhill Team @ the Duryea Downhill in Reading, PA this past weekend.  This was a unique urban downhill race with many challenging features on and off the trail!  They really put on a great show and it made for a very spectator friendly race.  I placed 7^th in the Cat 1 30-39 division.  A damn good time was had by all (that finished)!!!

Dixie Trix at Ranchstyle (May 4th-May 6th)

By Hillary Elgert:


What an amazing weekend at the inagural Dixie Trix slope style event!  Held at the same venue and weekend as Ranchstyle, but thanks to Tammy Donaghue , Lisa Tharp, Kat Sweet and other IMIC womens coaches, with a women's course and coaching this year as well.


I have been somewhat stalking this event for a few years,  but the only thing my self (and most other women aside from Tammy) could ride was the Dual slalom, and that with so few competitors.   This year a number of  ladyfreinds, who have become close through years of similar events and races,  were in attendance both riding and coaching.  The  ranch, as it's know, is a small, private slope style park just outside of Grand Junction, CO.  The jumps are not small though.  The main line of double jumps consists mostly of 20' + vert faces.    There is no water or electricity.  A fact unknow to me and evidently every other first timer.  Fortunately in true, thoughtful event management style, there was plenty of beer and Red Bull.  Dixie Trix had a special restricted access camping area, with access for all, that was a perfect escape from the stunned dude masses accustomed to the usual sausage fest.   The womens course, built specifically for this weekend, was a perfect combination of wooden bridges to roll-ins, a sweet wall ride,  dirt tabletops (a double with dirt in the middle),  and ending in the perfect beginner double with a 6' wooden vert face and a nice soft dirt lander.


The coaching and skills clinic took place on Friday, followed by the amateur competition. It was  the ideal time to hone skills with proper coaching tequniqy ( as opposed to your buddies goin " just go faster!")


Saturday held the pro women's slope style comp, as well as the mens.  These guys an galls can really throw down!  The ladies are all super smooth , throwing no handers, no footers, and super stylish whips!  I was hoping my buddy Gayle Dahlager would whip out her back filp, but no dice.  The men's final was just insane. In the years since I have been attending these types of events , the amount of air and technical difficulty of the tricks has gone through the roof. There was a time when a backflip in 10' of air was enough to take the win.  Sundays winner brought in his bag a tail whip backflip 40' off the ground.


As sick as all this this was, I ducked out of the mens finals for my own bit of sick riding.  The infamous ribbon trail descends the bluff through gorgeous high desert slickrock, slot canios and single track. After roping in a willing ride partner and pickup at the bottom,  i spent the remaining 3 hours of daylight in bike riding bliss as we raced the full moons' rise into town.  As if the day wasn't perfect enough, we found out pickup spot to contain the community dirt jump park ! ( Colorado knows how to do it up right).  We sessioned here till our friend came and took our smelly smiling faces to, where else, but the after party and video release of  Strength in Numbers !


After that it was back to the refugee camp, where the morning held heartfelt goodbyes to friends new and old.


Many of the mentalities, wishes, and coaching technique of this weekend helped to strenghthen my own. I cannot wait to employ these in my own endeavors to bring mountain biking accessability, both mentaly and physically, to more women in my area.

Iron Hill Challenge

By Brad Walker:

The Iron Hill Challenge in Delaware was my second race for Team Flying Dog. I consider myself more of an endurance racer as I like the drawn out pain instead of the intense short pain that comes with XC racing, both painful but different types. So I decide to do this race due to one of my riding and racing friends is racing. So I make the trip out to Delaware, not a fan of the traffic of going east through Baltimore and up the turnpike, but I put up with it since I will get to ride my bike somewhere new. I was set on doing the cat 1 or expert single speed class again but since my friend was in the cat 2 single speed class, that’s what I decided to do. So I push my way to the front of the starting line pumped up ready to bust a move. The man says go and off we go, I’m in the front for a good mile and then it gets really muddy and down goes the rider in front of me while riding over a wooden bridge, really I say to myself….why not go through the creak…this is mountain bike racing isn’t it! So instead of running this guy over with my 200 plus pound frame plus the bike I run off into the woods, again…the killer instinct wasn’t there - lol. Get back into the race and I’m sitting in 3^rd place and I know I have what it takes to reel them back in. Around mile 3 or 4, I hear a very loud snap from around the corner and as I approach I see my friend on the side of the trail not looking very happy. He has snapped his carbon seat post in half and he has no tools. Again, no killer instinct as he tells me to not worry about it and go get’em. So of course I stop, get my tools out (as half of the other riders race past) and fix his seat post to allow him to ride. So we take off and slowly reel a few riders in as we don’t have very many miles in the short XC sprint race as we would in a longer endurance style race. We get about 2 miles to go and he is getting tired from riding with half a seat post, so I decide to go for broke and end up catching another 4 riders to finish in 6^th place. A very fun up and down course but the slick trails were tough on a single speed. At this point I decide that XC racing is not for me and would rather do 50 miles of singletrack than 15 miles of an XC sprint race. Regardless another good learning experience of how I lack the killer instinct, maybe I can hire a sports psychologist to help with that…among other things!