The second stop of the 2006 NORBA circuit took me to a new venue, Sugar Mountain, tucked in the hills of western North Carolina. As I live in Utah, the idea of skiing at a venue this far south and at only 5300 feet elevation seemed odd to me, but there is a reason why this place is called Sugar Mountain - the sugary snow on the slopes. The new NORBA stop meant a new race course - this one was interesting, with lots of double track and paved climbing and then some "east coast" descending. Watch out for the rocks and roots.
It was difficult to get a good cell phone signal in this remote region and wireless internet was impossible, so here is a summary of the race weekend:
Thursday: Get to the venue and wash the vehicles in the rain. Setup the tech area and get bikes ready to go. The girls rode in the wet as there was some rain about. Tyre choice was key and we ended up changing all the tyres to some real knobby tread designs. Most of the race wheels still had minimally treaded tires still on from Fontana. Bike wash Thursday night took until the sun went down with all the mud.
