Hilly Billy Roubaix

Kirk Morrison was the only one of us MAN enough to take on this West Virginia Race!

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Kirk's Story:

Saturday’s Hilly Billy Roubaix ended up being quite a challenge. As expected, J.R. put on another phenomenal race.

The day included 72 very challenging miles with over 6,800 ft of climbing and 92 degree temps.  The roads consisted of mud, water, and many steep climbs/descents on hairy gravel roads. This pic is courtesy of J.R. Petsko at about mile 11.

At about mile 12, I found myself thigh deep in a similar looking puddle (only much deeper !) … all on officially recognized WV state roads.  I only crashed once at about mile 14 on a gravel section. The resultant banged-up arm, wrist & hand made braking and water bottle handling a bit painful. My hand started feeling better after a few more hours on the bike (or maybe I just didn’t notice as much since everything else was starting to hurt …).

Lots of flats during the race (even including mountain bikes ) due to the road conditions. I lost about 10 mins at the first rest stop when I helped Chrissie with a stubborn flat tire removal. Fortunately, my Kenda Small Block 700x35’s got me through with no problems and my C’dale Cx9-3 cross bike was solid.

The last pic is courtesy of Ben Stephens on the final climb to the finish.

At the end, I finished in 9th place in the 40+ age group... with a finish time of 6:27:41.

NOTE the almost 20% DNF rate!!!

I enjoyed watching the men’s podium sharing gulps from their champagne bottles while the women’s podium skipped the champagne to share swigs from Betsy’s 1st Prize bottle of WV Moonshine! … only in WV ! 

Overall had a great time. Highly recommended !