“As long as you've got the bars you're in control.”

“... There's a place that serves as a home for children to become independent and for adults to play like children” - Leigh Donovan

WHO CAN ENTER THE BLACK FLY CHALLENGE?

Whether you’re a serious competitor or an amateur cyclist, a unicyclist, tandem team, mountain biker or cyclocross rider, the Black Fly Challenge is an adventure that will test your stamina and strength over 40 miles of varying terrain, elevation gains and quick descents. Expect to ride over dirt, gravel, sand and around exposed boulders littered throughout the course. Retrieved from http://www.adirondackexperience.com/events/black-fly-challenge

Life is full of decisions – like cyclocross bike versus mountain bike versus unicycle versus fat bike versus tandem bike. A comparison sort is a sorting algorithm that reads a list of elements through a single abstract comparison operation (for example: what will be more fun?) and determines which of two elements should occur first in the final sorted list. I employ a comparison sort to help me decide which type of bike to ride. While the bulk of BFC competitors meet the challenge of the Black Fly with a mountain bike, my comparison sort results specified that I ride a cyclocross bike for the 20^th running of the Black Fly Challenge (with the unicycle coming in dead last, since I can’t ride a unicycle and the tandem bike was out, since I couldn’t figure out what to do with that second seat).

The first Black Fly (BFC) Challenge was held in 1996, with a total of 60 competitors. The BFC field of competitors has grown annually since that time and is now one of HRRT's most anticipated summer events. This year, at the race start, a bullpen of hundreds of competitors from around the country sang happy birthday to some guy named Don; finishing the serenade just in time for the 10 second to start countdown – best birthday ride start ever.

The profile of the BFC race course is sorta like a teenager's forehead; an unsightly boil flanked by numerous pimples. The first 20 miles of the race was to the head of the boil and was fairly uneventful: a few miles of tarmac, followed by well graded dirt, continuing onto not so well graded dirt, culminating in an arduous exposed bolder riddled dirt climb to the course's apex. The first twenty miles, predominantly climby, also offered an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the virtues of a cyclocross bike – a Colnago World Cup with a gravel grinder tweak by Jen. The 11-28 cassette was traded for a 12-30 version. My Stan's Ironcross wheels were mounted with thirty-five millimeter file tread tires and inflated to 50psig.

By the twenty mile point in the race, I had down-selected the surrounding competition to three rabbits against whom I'd pace myself. The first rabbit cramped at mile 28, the beginning of the climb up one of the many pimples; rabbit number two fell off the back at mile 34, ascending the last of the larger pimples; the third rabbit, a mountain bike endurance racer who's wheel I never dreamed I could keep in sight, became my mark.

I once heard a wise man say “As long as you've got the bars you're in control.”- Krispy Baughman in Third Down a film by Thor Wixom and Phil Edlefson (2002)

At the start of the BFC there were the general precautionary statements: make sure everyone has a number plate with a chip, be cool for the mass start – everyone will be on course within a couple minutes, blah, blah, someone pre-riding hit some rocks, crashed bad and broke their back two days ago, blah... What was that? Someone broke their back and was airlifted out? What rocks? Exactly where are these rocks? They're on the back side of the last big pimple? I followed my mark over the head of that last big pimple a foot from their wheel. “Pick a clean line.” were the last words I said as I tucked in behind the endurance mountain biker for the descent. This is where the virtues of the mountain bike shone brightly.

Bam! I was straddling my top tub, both feet off the pedals, chain dragging the ground, hanging onto my curly bars with a death grip. I didn't see what I had hit or how I'd hit it. I wasn't sure that my bike was still in one piece – it wouldn’t be the first bike to disintegrate out from under me. All I knew was that I had to slow my rig down. Have I ever mentioned how much I appreciate disc brakes? By the end of my four second near death experience, I had somehow slowed the rig, put a foot on a pedal, hoisted my rear end back onto the saddle, and with one spin of the crank-set re-established a working drive train. I looked around shaken and in complete disbelief that the Colnago and Stan's wheels were still in one piece and that I'd only lost twenty yards on my mark – best birthday ride near-death-experience ever.

Last year, I pre-rode the BFC course in this year's direction; This turned out to be an advantage over my mark, who was new to the Indian Lake-to-Inlet race option. I knew which of the remaining pimples in the varying terrain was the last. I stayed just out of my mark's peripheral vision and at two pedal strokes to the crown of the last of the hills, I shifted and stomped on my pedals with all I had. Luckily, I got the jump on my mark and was able to open up a sufficient gap on the final descent to maintain the lead into the last mile of the race which is single track. Once into the single track, I had a technical abilities advantage and was able to hold onto a three second lead across finish line. I ended the day with a best-race-ever feeling for a my standard mid-pack performance – best birthday ride finish ever.

See More photos here: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/2015_black_fly_challenge