2010 Inaugural Transylvania Stage Race
written by: Karen Potter
First off I want to send out a big thank you to Mike Kuhn and Ray Adams
for putting on a wonderful stage race. It was very well organized and
everything ran smoothly as far as I could tell. The volunteers were
great. Even Mike and Ray’s parents were instrumental in seeing this
stage race come together. Their parents even made some of the prizes –
like the very cool and unique handmade TSE coaster – I love it!
The
photographer, A.E. Landes Photography was great too. Abe put together a
slide show each evening of the day’s stage. Mike and Ray had some great
schwag for prizes for everyone who finished as well as for daily stage
winners. I hope they can continue to secure good sponsorship for this
race, which I imagine they will be able too since it seemed to be a big
hit this inaugural year.
The TSE was a great first stage race for me to enter into this new
format of racing. Granted, half way through, I was thinking I wasn’t
going to survive, but that had nothing to do with how the race was put
on. It was tough but doable and with some really fun stages to boot.
short, although that’s because I am done now and at home looking at a
couple of nice rest weeks before my next 100 miler. But I really don’t
feel ‘wrecked’ like I anticipated feeling finishing this race. There
was good variety in the stages, although, I wasn’t particularly keen on
the long ‘roady’ day, but it was a break from the rocky, rough terrain
of PA. And unfortunately my most tired day, Stage 4 at Raystown, was
some of the most fun, fastest trail riding I’ve done in a while –
smooth, giant pump track like terrain. It was sweet. I would love to go
back there to ride those trails on fresh legs.
There are some wonderful trail systems in PA. We got to ride lots of
them in this race and hopefully even more of them next year. I won’t
lie – it is rocky, but mostly it’s just purely true mountain biking in
my book. And my competition was pretty tough but I was pleased to hang
in there in 2nd place with some really experienced endurance racers,
and make lots of new riding friends.