Cackalacky Cup
Cackalacky 2007
For Cackalacky 2007, Paul Sadoff, of Rock Lobster,
was scheduled to fly in Thursday night but had fallen off of his
bike the previous week and hurt his hand which required surgery. The
procedure was scheduled for Wednesday and Paul was informed that he
couldn't fly that soon after surgery....so Paul was out at the last
minute.
Friday evening saw the arrival of Otis Guy and Capt. Dondo into
Charlotte Douglas Int'l Airport and they were whisked away to a
local BBQ joint. EL and Don joined in after an eventful trip from
Raleigh in the single speed (truck). Lancaster's features a full
sized school bus that you can sit in plus hundreds are NASCAR race
car hoods, pedal cars, video games, big screens, helmets, fire
suits..........dripping from every crevice of the building. Pig and
beer were consumed.
Saturday morning brought the first
mountain bike competition ever held at the Itusi Trail at Lake
Norman State Park. We have over 6 years and thousands of hours
invested in 13 miles of rolling single track. The first event was a
4 mile technical time trial featuring a couple of cone slaloms, a
12' skinny and a limbo with 2 different heights. If you skipped or
missed an obstacle, seconds were added to your race time. The second
event was a 6 mile "all out" time trial on the new Monbo Loop. The
ride times were combined for an overall winner. Otis won the 50+
category and Dondo finished six Source Burns (to be regretted
later). The fastest lap in each event chose between a Fox Fork and
Cane Creek wheel set. There were some really great prizes that went
3 deep in each category. While we were putting on the event, wES
called from the shop to let us know that Bill Grove was wandering
around town with a van load of Grove bikes. Rody, of Groovy
Cycleworks, had brought Bill and his two sons down to check out the
festivities. After checking out the shop for a couple of hours, they
came down to the park and put in a lap.
The Ti Grove X 29" made the scene with a
Rohloff hub:
Bill also brought their Grove Woods bike.
There were only 3 produced and one was destroyed leaving ours and
Bills as the only surviving bikes of that model:
Rody brought a cool Groovy with his new
bars on it. We are trying a couple of sets of them and feedback has
been great:
Don took the theme to heart and rode his
Otis Guy all weekend. As a bonus, Otis promised to send him a
"nickel plug" to replace his Salsa bar end plug on top of the
steerer tube.
After the ride, we adjourned to the shop for pizza, veggies and
beers. bOb, our local trail guru, was celebrating his 50th on Sunday
so we combined the open house with a birthday party.
Work room at the shop:
About 1/16 of the upstairs:
Otis, myself, Dondo, wES
Sunday morning brought the bike Pisgah
excursion. We rode a 16 mile loop that started with a nice warm-up
fire road climb and was capped by a 1,400 foot elevation drop in a
mile. The Garmin read up to -34 degree slopes! After the big
descent, there are about a dozen creek crossing to help cool you
off. Someone on the ride must have angered the insect gods since we
were fighting with the yellow jackets and hornets throughout the
ride.
Rick on his Fat Chance:
Regrouping
on the fire road climb (4 new Mountain Goats!):
After the ride, we had to haul butt back
to Charlotte to get Otis on his flight so he didn't miss the kids
first day of class. Dondo had remembered the Pisgah ride being on
Monday from 2006 and wasn't flying out until Tuesday which gave him
a little more time to hang around the shop and buy snow globes.
All in all, a FANTASTIC time. Just hanging out with Bill, Otis and
Dondo was great. I spend 4+ hours on the way to and from Pisgah just
listening to Dondo and Otis talk about their time in the sport we
love. Everything from 1970's road races, world championships,
Breeze/Fisher/Ritchey, Repack, magazine reviews, Iditabike (twice!),
best bikes...........as the commercial says: priceless.
We have already started working on ways to make next year even
better. There have also been discussions with two of what I would
consider that biggest VRC names to attend Cackalacky 2008, details
as they unfold. See ya in '08.
The 2007 Itusi Time Trial results are available HERE
Great big thanks to Fox Racing Shox, Cane Creek components, Dirt Rag, Tifosi Optics, Source Burn energy drinks, and Shimano for supporting the cause!! These are some of the finer companies in the bike industry and please keep them in mind when you go shopping for bikes and equipment.
Click on the picture above to check out 90+ pictures of the 2007 Cackalacky Cup.
"Cycling is the sport of usefulness." Fred DeLong