Rat the Retro-Grouch and the Black Bear 40K

“Yeah, well is smoking Marlboro Reds a secret West Virginia performance enhancer?”

When I first moved to Pittsburgh from New Jersey in the early 1990’s I had heard a lot about the epic mountain biking in the great state of West Virginia. Having always attributed extreme poverty, strip mined hillsides, and used car lots filled with fine automobiles on cinder blocks, I was under the impression that going on a ride in West Virginny would result in an episode similar to the fate of those unwitting whitewater rafters in Deliverance. After convincing myself it was only a stupid movie, and that West Virginians were far more sophisticated than squealing like pigs and dueling banjo contests, I decided to do the Black Bear 40K race near Canaan.

The Black Bear 40K is one of the oldest and most legendary mountain bike races in existence, sharing part of its course with the original 24 Hours of Canaan. Often regarded as “the scariest mountain bike race in West Virginia”, casualties from the race actually resemble an encounter with a Black Bear. And well before human powered machines, dirt bikes predominantly ruled the roost by competing in the legendary Blackwater 100, an enduro dirt bike race.

Unfortunately, the attendance of the race at Blackwater Falls State Park near Davis got so high in the early 1990’s, that human waste issues forced the state to ban dirt bikes from the trails, and of course, they conveniently grouped mountain bikes in as well. Eventually the Black Bear 40K was moved to its present location near Charleston, but the Black Bear experience I had occurred near the quaint town of Davis where the race originated.

I was still a young, stupid, inexperienced and naïve bike racer at 17 – hence my misguided preconceptions about West Virginia – and was in my first season of racing for a real team; Dirty Harry’s Bike Shop in Verona, PA. That race weekend was not only my first mountain bike race in West Virginia, but it was also the first weekend that my parents let me drive down in their Ford Exploder without supervision, unless you count my younger brother, Paul, which doesn’t qualify.

After a three hour drive, we pulled into the parking lot with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood” cranked so loud that everyone witnessed our arrival. Some of the racers I recognized from the ‘Burgh, and one I recognized from Dirt Rag magazine, the legendary West Virginia racer, Gunnar Shogren. But the racers I didn’t recognize seemed to have a special aura about them – their old tattered shoes, their wife beater t-shirts, their two dollar clear lens safety glasses they bought at Home Depot – these folk were not any ordinary mountain bikers; these folk were bona fide West Virginia retro-grouches.

Of all the racers donning their oversized neon helmets and strapping down their parachute-sized Camelbacks, I could count on two hands the number of guys (and gals!) who were riding with front suspension. It seemed that everyone was fully rigid and some guys were even riding Power Straps – the neoprene-like stretchy clips which went on a platform pedal. Having just upgraded to clipless pedals and a Manitou 3 on my Diamond Back Axis, I was stoked. These hill country bumpkins won’t know what the hell was blazing past them on the downhills with all my new go-fast gadgetry. Shoot, rigid forks and Power Straps? Please. I was fit to smoke every last one of those retro-grouch chumps.

I donned my new purple and black Dirty Harry’s jersey, my watermelon-sized neon yellow Bell Image helmet and cheapo cycling shorts, and started warming up around the parking lot. I tried really hard to look cool and rolled up to a couple of teammates who I hadn’t met yet. One of them was a local kid my age who everyone called Rat. I think it might have been his little nose and teeny-tiny teeth which pointed inward like a rodent’s, but I didn’t ask him the specific reason for his moniker.

I went into the singletrack in about seventh place, and the trail quickly got rutted, rocky, and loose. My skills were adequate, and I pushed myself to the limit. I stayed off the brakes as much as possible and tried to follow the same lines as the guys in front of me. After a quarter mile of jarring and sliding, Gunnar dropped me with no effort at all. However, I didn’t get discouraged because I knew holding off the grouches behind me wouldn’t be a problem. Boy was I mistaken.

One after another, a bum rush of retro-grouches on sans-suspension bikes were blowing by me as if my wheels were cemented into the Appalachian dirt. Here I was, descending with white knuckles and a barrage of bravado, and one after another after another West Virginian careened past. Being more concerned with not ricocheting off a boulder and down a 200 foot drop off, I let each grouch pass me – including Rat.

He made a snide remark about my boxers as he blew past and left a reek of cigarette butts, but I was too distraught to comprehend what he said. All I wanted to do was make it to the bottom in one piece with my go-fast gadgets, but unfortunately they were quickly being turned into get-passed gadgets.

After being passed by about 20 riders, I got to the bottom only to find my front tire was loosing air fast. How could my front wheel, which was aided by suspension, go flat when these retro-grouches were all flat free and passing me with their rigidness?

I jumped off the bike to commence the world’s fastest flat change. I timed it at right about 150 Mississippi’s, which equates to about two minutes, as I lag on the Mississippi part. I got the flat changed but used my only inner tube, so if I had any further mishaps, the remaining 30K was going to be pretty hellacious, especially considering it was a point to point race.

After another open section of trail, I came upon Rat who, not surprisingly, was struggling with his smoky lungs to turn over the pedals quickly. For an added FU element, I came up behind him NASCAR style, caught a brief draft, and attacked him.

"See ya later, smokey,” I shouted in his ear as I passed. I looked back to see what damage I had done, and the psychological toll inflicted from my decisive move was clearly evident on his panting ratty face.

For the next 20K I didn’t see or hear anything from Rat. I passed virtually every retro-grouch who blew by me on the first downhill and had a feeble thought that I could possibly catch Gunnar and beat him. Just as I was daydreaming about that unattainable possibility, I hit a downhill along a firebreak with huge power lines that nearly broke my bike and body. There was only 10K to go, and after 30K of racing, the massive boulders on that seemingly endless West Virginia firebreak made the task of descending even more daunting. I told myself to stay calm and just make it to the bottom without dying, which actually almost worked if it weren’t for Rat head.

Within five minutes of the never-ending descent, the cursed retro-grouches began their bum rush again and passed me one after another. My deepest fear was quickly realized when I heard the sound of a rat bearing down on me.

“Go dude, go! C’mon. Go or get out of my way!”

I took horrible lines and plowed my front tire into an immobile West Virginia chicken rock. I ate shit, dirt, pebbles, leaves, a few cigarette butts (probably Rat’s!), and everything else which laid along the trail. With my face dug deep into the dirt like a plow, Rat didn’t even bother to stop and check if I was alive.

I was totally caught off guard. I thought Rat was going to ridicule me some more or maybe even try to fight me, but instead he offered up his version of a truce.

“Want a smoke?”

I didn’t know what to say and just gazed at the pack of Marlboro’s in his hand with a bewildered look.

“Sure, what the hell.”