This past Saturday, August 18th, a pretty large group of Notheast Ohio mountain bikers made the trip to Slatyfork, West Virginia for the famous Wild 100.  This was my first time at the Wild 100 and it definitely lived up to its reputation as a true backcountry mountain biking experience and a great time.

The event starts from the beautiful Elk River Touring Center and requires riders to navigate from the start/finish through a total of five checkpoints.  The map you’re given at the start of the race shows you where the checkpoints are and it’s up to you to find them using whatever trails you choose (paved roads are off-limits with a couple exceptions).  The race is approximately 100 kilometers, depending o­n the route you choose. 

It was my first time doing the race and my plan was to stick with the Slatyfork master, Bill “Trainwreck” Braum.  We started out at 7:15AM and quickly got to a fire road climb that lasted around 45 minutes.  I usually don’t start feeling strong in a ride until at least an hour into things, so this was a tough way for me to start.  It wasn’t unexpected though since the Wilderness 101 started the exact same way when I did it in 2005.  At the top of the climb, I was a bit ahead of my tour guide and I waited for him there.  Of course, he knew exactly where to go when he got there and immediately jumped o­nto a downhill section of old logging road.

Like I said, I always feel jittery at the start of these things and this was no exception.  I followed Bill and a few other Clevelanders, but they quickly pulled away o­n this rocky, wet downhill.  This downhill turned out to be much longer than I expected and by the time I was at the end of it, I realized I had lost them.  It is a race after all, so these kind of things happen.  Fortunately, Brian Lowe was just behind me and we hung together.

At the bottom of the downhill, we crossed a road into some federal grazing land with some amazing views in every direction.  As we were admiring the view, I also realized there was no trail and I got pretty frustrated that we had lost the group.  Fortunately, Brian was there to remind me that we had to find a way out and that I needed to “get in the game”.  I gradually came to the realization that he and I were o­n our own with o­nly the map and with no GPS or compass.  This is a very bad idea for someone who has never done this race before, but Brian had, so I felt reasonably confident.

By following a few others and with some luck, we made it through the grazing land to a fire road.  After making a wrong turn and having to turn back, which cost us about 15-20 minutes, we finally made it to checkpoint #1.  We stood there for a moment and examined the map to find #2.  The route to this checkpoint was much more straightforward and we were off.

The route to #2 was technical at points, but passed by fairly quickly.  As we were nearing #2, we passed by our tour guide along with a bunch of other people we knew since the route required you to double back over the same route to get to #3.  It was a bummer that we made that wrong turn back before #1, because we could have easily caught up to them by this point. 

We grabbed some food and water at #2 and headed to #3.  This leg of the ride also passed by quickly since we were going through a lot of the same trails/fire roads we had just done.  When we got to #3, my wife was there to greet us and it was time for Brian and I to make a major decision.

We had three choices to get to #4, which was at the top of a mountain at the intersection of several trails.  Option 1 was the legendary Tea Creek Mountain trail.  After Tea Creek, we would need to do the gentle, but very long climb of Bannock Shoals.  Option 2 was to double back over that same section of trail a third time and option 3 was a very long fire road ride.

We decided that we couldn’t handle the thought of riding over that same section of trail a third time, so we went with Tea Creek.  I’m glad we did this since it made the ride much more interesting, but it probably added a fair amount of distance to our ride.  I had never ridden Tea Creek before and I immediately understood why it is legendary.  The trail consists of a bit of a climb, then a monster boulder field that is unrideable (even for Bill Braum?), and then a crazy long, steep descent o­n a super-narrow trail that drops into the abyss o­n o­ne side.  After doing the Bannock Shoals climb, which probably took close to an hour, we had to hike straight up some super steep stuff carrying our bikes and then continued hike-a-biking for another 30 minutes or so.  We arrived at #4 around 4:30PM.

When we realized how late it and we were o­nly at #4, we knew this was going to be a very long day.  Fortunately, the trip from #4 to #5 was pretty easy with a fun single-track descent at the start and then a lot of fire road to the famous Props Run trail that ends right back at the Elk River Touring Center.  I knew Props was downhill, but I had no idea it was a full eight miles long and that you had to be o­n your game for every minute.  I’m sure it’s fun when you’re fresh, but after 60 miles of riding, it was pretty brutal.  The name of the game was getting down without crashing since there were dozens of little wet, rocky drainage ditches along the way.

Brian and I finally made it back after 11 hours and 37 minutes and 72 miles of riding.  I never crashed and I felt good throughout the race.  We quickly got showers and then joined the rest of the Cleveland contingent for dinner provided by the Elk River Restaurant and beer from the West Virginia Brewing Company.  Obviously we were exhausted and I was in bed by about 9:45.  As I was lying in bed, I heard the crowd that was left cheer the final finishers across the line.  I can’t imagine being out there past dark, but they toughed it out.  Very impressive!

This event has an absolutely fantastic vibe to it and I highly recommend it.  It’s a great experience and a terrific feeling of accomplishment.  Although the distance may sound intimidating, I think this race is within the reach of a lot of people since the training required to complete it really just consists of a lot of long rides.  If you’re looking for a true backcountry mountain biking experience in some beautiful country, check out the Wild 100.