5th annual Off Road Assault on Mt. Mitchell

A high exposure weekend for backtodirt.com racers. On Sunday, at the 5th
annual Off Road Assault on Mt. Mitchell (the original marathon distance event)
in Old Fort, NC, BTD racing took 3 of the top 10 places.

After an initial 3 miles of pavement to get out of town, the race went
quickly to singletrack and straight up the first 45 minute granny gear
climb. It was only a couple of minutes into climb when “the two Charlie’s”,
as they became known throughout the day, road off from the 200
rider field and never looked back. Charlie Pendry and Charlie Storm rode the
entire 55 mile course, with 12,000 feet of climbing, as if it were a long road
race breakaway, taking one minute pulls and rotating for the entire race.

In the end, It was the climbing/descending specialist Charlie Pendry, who
opened up a small 5 second gap on Storm on the final descent. The two had
decided to wait until the last descent to decide the win. Charlie Pendry
(5:10:00) got the honor of handing training partner Charlie Storm (5:10:05) his
first defeat at the marathon distance on American soil. Back to Dirt’s
Kevin Hall (6:07:00) came in 8th overall in his first try at the triple
XC (as it was originally named here on the east coast where “marathon
[isn't that a running race?]” racing originated).

BTD’s team manager, Jimmy Bruner (6:25:00), finished 6th in the master’s
35+ and 20th overall. a very fine result considering jimmy has recently had a
baby girl and trains only about 9-11 hours/week.

12th annual Greensboro Summer Sizzler XC

2 Hours away, 169 riders competed in “short course” XC. What is
beginning to shape up to be a very intense rivalry in the Southeast, BTD’s Dan
Doub battled all day with OLP”s Diego Garavitos. Doub got a break when Garavitos
wrecked under the intense race pressure that has become common when these two
“refuse to loose” competitors wage war on each other. Garavitos broke his wheel
and DNF’d. BTD’s Doub was rewarded for all of the time he has spent in his last
two years working on his handling skills, not to mention that he has better
equipment.

BTD’s Scott “the glide” Whitworth was 3rd in the Sport men’s race. Kyle
Shannon was 3rd in beginner and Hippie Derek Keller was 2nd in
singlespeed.

Last year the Mt Mitchell and Greensboro races, which are held on the
same weekend and a two hour drive apart, had a combined 181 racers. This year
the two events had a combined 364 racers. This continues the trend in the
southeast this year of approximately double the field sizes as compared to the
past few seasons.

Thank you very much to all of the Back To Dirt partners, friends, and family members who contributed product or financial assistance to send me to the Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships. This trip was beyond the team and my personal budget and would not have been possible without your support.

Although I would have liked to have come home World Champion, I finished 8^th in the 250+ rider field. The marathon was a 65-mile single loop course with 12,000 feet of climbing. The course was mostly rugged dirt roads with little single-track. What single-track there was, was usually straight down and heavy with mud from the three days straight of rain and 55 degree temperatures.

It has been a successful year for me this far. I qualified for a national team and had two straight NORBA National Marathon race wins. The remainder of this year, I look forward to a relaxed local race schedule. I will be putting a lot of my efforts into moving the Back To Dirt Team forward to next season and growing my coaching business, Storm Coaching Systems. Dan, Pendry, and the BTD Racing club are sure to produce results the remainder of the year with three more NORBA National races, the NORBA National Championship race, and the
Collegiate XC National Championships on the calendar.

Frank Jones, Owner of Frank’s Cyclery, traveled with me and performed mechanic duties
in Austria for me. All volunteer work. My national team jersey will now join Ryan Trebon’s U-23 national jersey in Frank’s store.

Storm Coaching/Back to Dirt cyclocrossross training/interval workouts

For the 3rd year in a row, Charlie Storm will guide/conduct grouptraining sessions at Brooks Park, west of Cary. Training will be at 6pm on Wednesday evenings prior to the cyclocross season. More info to come, but here are the dates.

Sept 8
Sept 15
Sept 22
Sept 29
Oct 6
Oct 13
Oct 20

Additional details will be posted on backtodirt.com and stormcoaching.com as details become finalized.

Charlie Storm
Storm Coaching Systems
Back To Dirt Racing
socstorm@juno.com