25 September 2014

Volunteers for the United States Adventure Racing National Championships

Hey to all,

So the Worlds are over and now we're hosting the National Adventure Racing Championships and need some volunteers.

Take a look at the shifts below and send an email to TCOPESWORLD@gmail.com if you can help out.  This will be a chance to see ultra endurance racing up close.....



USARA Adventure Race National Championship - Volunteer Schedule

Thursday October 2, 2014

1:00 pm – 5:30 pm               (8 Volunteers)
Waivers / Licenses      2       Wisp
USARA Merchandise  2       Wisp
T-shirts                          2       Wisp
Swag                             2       Wisp


Friday October 3, 2014
7:30 am – 10:30 am             (16 volunteers – 3 hours)
Swim staging area       8       ASCI
Water entry                 4       ASCI
Finish/poker chip        1       ASCI
Run start                       2       ASCI
Run/poker chip           1       ASCI


10:00 am – 8:00 pm             (6 volunteers – 10 hours)
Paddle start/finish      3       Marina
TA 2                               3       Deep Creek State Park


Friday October 3, 2014 – Saturday October 4, 2014

Wisp TA/Finish line               (8 Volunteers in 8 hour shifts)
Fri 8 am - Fri 4 pm       2       WISP
Fri 4 pm - Sat 12 pm   2       WISP
Sat 12 pm - Sat 8 am   2       WISP
Sat 8 am - Sat 3 pm     2       WISP


Friday 12 noon – Saturday 12 noon (4 Volunteers – 24 hours)
TA 3  Volunteers will work in shifts but need to bring camping equipment/ food for entire 24 hours

07 September 2014

Black Bear Adventure Race

Okay, so I put this on the Commie schedule a long time ago.   Good friend Mike Serro was putting this on in Deep Creek and you got to support our local community.  I knew it was falling 2 weeks from the World Championships but it can work, right??

Well on one hand I was really fretting doing this because it took me out of the World Championship office for a whole day but on the other hand was looking forward to busting out a good workout here in the epicenter of adventure sports....

Rucking up with me was Eric Lapp who's been an amazing addition to the team and roster.  Newbie Joey DiSimone rounded out the third and this was his first adventure race.

I served as captain and gave the navigation duties over to Eric who has performed superbly this season.  Joey (as a newbie) was team mule....  carry the passport and punch the points.  Plus carry any gear TCOPE says to....  :)

This week was hectic but we all showed up at the pre race meeting at the Mountain State Brewery.  Great choice.  Plot maps and drink beer....  A Commie favorite....

We got done early and headed home.  Eric had homework to make the navigation plan from home after looking at satellite views and terrain analysis.  There were three options for routes as I saw it....

5am......  up and going to the start.  I get there.  Eric and Joey were dropping paddle gear at the put in.  Seem Joey has forgotten his helmet!  It's 15 minutes to start and I do a mad dash to the house to grab another helmet.  Thank goodness I lived so close.  I hate starting  like this.

Of the 3 routes and strategies, we settled on an early paddle.  The weather looked like it was going to turn and we wanted OFF that lake before the weather came in.  Some other teams chose to nail the bike first but we settled in on our plan.

the race started with a mile prologue.  Usual run like hell to a point then back and get your heart rate into super human zone....  We took our time and nailed the point and got back to the bikes.  From there we nailed one point enroute to the boats.  Once at the boats we sorted our some gear and hit the water.  A tandem kayak and a single.  Eric was in the single and we soon began out pacing him.  We then ran a tow line and that helped.  We had about a 9-10 mile paddle and we did it in fairly calm water.  No issues on navigation and we nailed the whole thing and all four points before getting back to the take out.

At the takeout we got back on bikes and headed north the way we came in for the brutal climb up Marsh Mountain.  We know this place like the back of our hands so this was the logical (yet tough) way to get into the field of play.  We climbed this and actually headed up past my office at the whitewater center and dropped into Fork Run.

No matter how many times you've done Fork Run, I always seem to get turned around.  We nailed a point up high at ASCI and then dropped in and got to the bridge to nail point two.  We wandered around a bit but got all the point there.  Two sections (paddle and mountain bike) and we were 100% on points.

Next was the road slog on bike to Swallow Falls.  We hit the road and crank hammered into the State Park.  Here we dropped bikes and circumnavigated the park and the waterfalls to get all the points here.  Back on the bike we headed out the park the back way.

First navigation error....  The back way was not actually the "back way".  Eric had plotted a single track trail but we rode out a fairly innocent forest road.  We decided to head on a Tolliver trail looking for CP 15 and it became apparent we were a long ways off because of the error.  No worries.  We continued on and got us placed on the map and made our way to CP 15.  A lucky spot of a trail sign got us out of the stream bed and onto the trail to nail the point.....

From there it was a bit of a single track slog back out to the road.  Once there we turned north and made our way to the Snaggy Mt Road and onwards to the rock maze for CP 16.  We did a bit of a bushwack on foot to the rock maze to nail the point.

From there onward north and into the Cranesville Swamp.  Eric had expertly taken satellite imagery and drawn out a perfect illustration of the trails in the swamp.  We got there and single tracked out thru the swamp to the boardwalk to now the Pleban point.  The Pleban point was the furthest point away from the finish and also in the State of WV.  It was named after Scotty Pleban who was a great adventure racer that got hit by a car and succombed to being in a coma.  Scotty was loved by all and it wasn't till I got to the point that I made the connection....

Now...............  DECISION............
How to get into the Piney Mountain Reserve.  We had three options.
1.  ride the road north for a long ways then come in on the forest road and climb up again.
2.  Ride the road north for a short distance then bushwack up a pipeline to gain the road to climb up
3.  BUSHWACK like a mother with the bikes STRAIGHT UP THE HILL TO THE KNOB........

We chose 3.  Sometimes when i'm done with races I wonder what people really think we do on adventure races.  If I said push/carry your bike up 700 vertical feet over 1 kilometer thru deep vegetation i wonder if they even understand what i mean.  I'm talking about dragging your bike thru sections......  We were smoked but popped out right on top and gained CP 23 before anyone coming from the bottom.  From there we continued the bushwack down looking for a road.  We passed a couple racers that looked incredulous that we were there with bikes.....

We got down and after a brief navigation error again nailed 22.  Once on the trail we got down to 21.  Rode a bit out to nail 20 and then back to the main trail down to the power line.

We had heard CP 19 was impossible.  We tried anyway.  We dropped bikes and went in and started navigating through HEAVY, HEAVY rhodendron thickets....  basically crawling to find a slight hilltop at 2900 feet elevation.  I found the uprising but it took me a half hour to go 300 meters.  I was trying to get to the north side where the map had plotted the point.  Eric and Joey waited for me.  I could not penetrate the thicket.  After 1 hour of searching we decided to pull the plug....  Up to this point we were 100%.

Back to the bikes we had an hour and a half to travel back to the finish.  Two points were right on the road so this was a piece of cake.....

Of course in adventure racing everything goes to shit.....

I flatted immediately.  We changed my tire in virtually 30 seconds....  I'm a pro at this.  I pulled out the CO2 cartridge and.........................................  IT DIDN'T WORK!  Now panic sets in.  I'm sitting on a flat rim and we're 7 miles from the finish.

I start pushing my bike down the trail looking to see if there are other adventure racers that have a pump..  Nothing.  I get out of Piney mountain and start riding down a paved road on a flat rim with a tire on it.  The road descends greatly to the Yough river and I have to keep it under control.

3/4s of the way down a race official comes by and I ask if he has a pump.  He does!!!!!!!!!  I pump up the tire thinking it might have failed since I rode already 2 miles on it flat.  It holds!!!  I'm off.
We finish the descent and then we still have a long, long climb to the finish.  The first part is gradual for 2 miles or so and the last 1.5 miles is vicious climbing.

Panic....  Joey, says he has flatted.  There is no time to change a second tire.  It appears to be a slow leak so we pump it up again and go.  It's dark now and we have no lights.  We're battling to hit the cut off time at the finish.  We hit the base of the last climb with 25 minutes to go.  We can do this....

thru a combination of pushing, walking and peddling we make it to the top and cruise into the Mountain State Brewery 15 minutes before the cut off.....

Team Commie Bar cleared the entire course except point 19.  For that effort we finished 3rd!  The field was tough.

special shout out to the Adventure Sports Institute that finished the race with 1 minute to spare....!

Pics to come....
TCOPIOUS MAXIMOUS...








02 September 2014

The Summit Brands......... The Greatest Adventure Company in the World...


The Greatest 
Adventure Company In The World!







The Summit Brands including Summit Consulting, Summit Event Productions LLC, Summit Adventure Racing and Deep Creek 2014 Event Productions LLC....


The Summit Brands have been all over the planet this year.  
We are BUSY!!!

Some quick bullets
*  Summit and Deep Creek 2014 led the United States delegation to the 2013 Whitewater World Championships in the Czech Republic and brought home the ICF flag to America.

*  We've been the event production company of choice for the Whitewater Kayak World Championships.  We're hosting over 50 nations in Deep Creek, MD at the Adventure Sports Center International.  Still can't believe we're producing a WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP!!  More teams than the Olympics....

*  We are the direct regional liaison to the United States Adventure Racing Association and will host the USARA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS here in Deep Creek Lake, MD


*  We are the direct regional liaison and Todd Copley serves as a Regional Course Official for Race Across America, the world's toughest bike race.  Deep Creek Lake MD was host city and Time Station 47 for this year's edition.

*  We are involved extensively in the North American bid to bring the International Festival of Extreme Sports (FISE) to this
continent.  We hope to do this in 2016.



*  We are the direct liaison to the Washington, DC 2024 Olympic bid organization and will be a part of the Canoe Slalom (if not more) portion of the Olympic bid.
*  Team Commie Bar remains the #1 ranked 3 man adventure racing team in all of North America.  We've raced all over the Mid Atlantic, Colorado, Utah, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, ect....  No three man team in this hemisphere can go longer and race more than us....

*  Summit Consulting helped launch the Center of Adventure & Experiential Learning at Garrett College this past year.  
*  Deep Creek 2014 and Summit Consulting completed the 2.2 Million dollar infrastructure project at the Adventure Sports Center International.


*  Deep Creek 2014 in collaboration with inVNT Inc secured the NBC Sports & Universal Sports coverage of the 2014 Canoe Slalom World Championships.  

*  Summit Consulting's Todd Copley serves on the board of directors of the Adventure Cycling Association, the world's largest membership based organization.

*  Summit Consulting and Todd Copley serves as adviser and head coach of the Adventure Sports Institute's Collegiate Adventure Racing Team.

*  Summit Consulting and Todd Copley serve on the strategic planning board of the Adventure Sports Center International

*  Summit Consulting serves on the board of advisors for Nature & Kind, a U.K. luxury travel brand.


*  Summit Consulting serves on the board of moderators for the largest substance & tobacco abuse help organization in the world. We help addicts get their lives back and we've saved thousands of lives.  



The Summit Brands Around The World and Around our Lives.....

We're the Greatest Adventure Company in the World!!












03 August 2014

Krista 12Hr Adventure Race

August 2, 2014 Krista Grissacker 12hr Adventure Race bait
I kind of signed up for this at the last minute as Team Commie Bar needed a 3rd male and the race was only an hour from my house (this is the closest to home I've raced since April). If you've ever driven on the PA Turnpike and seen that big wooded mountain ridge that runs most of the way across the eastern end of the state, that was our race course. Well that one and the two other similar mountains north of it...

I met the team at 2200 Friday night. I checked in late bc I worked all day. We headed into town to go over the race plan. Donny and Chris are two very cool racers. They are the antithesis of the triathlon types. They loaded up on double cheese burgers and chicken mcnuggets and fries while we plotted our route on the map. After that we stopped for beer and got to bed around 0100. The race started at 0600 with an hour bus ride north.

Once there two teammates had to find the bikes that we had previously loaded into a trailer while the third teammate had to do a one mile trail run to retrieve the passport. They seemed to think I was the better trail runner so I got that assignment. It was 1/2 mile uphill, but coming down was nice. It was a good warm-up.

Next we got on the bikes and hit the MTB trail. This part of the course was marked, which is rare in adventure racing. We rode about 10 miles/2 hrs of groomed trail then hit fire roads. After Waypoint 1 we were on our own. I navigated us to the first CP using a map just for that area. Once we hit that CP, we were on the BIG map, and headed south. We bombed down the mountain on the road--my tires were humming! 3 miles later we pulled into a public hunting area (called Game Lands in PA) and met a grumpy warden who wouldn't let us on the property and had removed the CP flag. Fortunately the RD arrived and kind of sorted things out.

We had to divert along the road to get to the next CP but they gave us a time bonus (and no one went to jail, always a good thing). The next CP was a TA to foot. We headed up the mountain on foot in a bushwhack and nailed 7 CP's. Our navigation was spot on for all but CP 5, but we worked together as a team and nailed it. The woods were beautiful and the blueberries were getting ripe. I'm surprised we didn't see a bear.

Expect for a quarter mile on the AT, we did not use any trails while on foot all day. Next we got back on the bikes for 3 miles and headed to the paddle TA. We dropped bikes but had to carry helmets and bike shoes the rest of the race (packs were getting very heavy!). The small river we were on was running low and we had to drag the boat a couple times. Three guys in a canoe is never fun but since I'm the tallest and heaviest,

I always get the back (and I'm not complaining!) The canoe was only 6 miles and towards the end, there were close to several other boats. In a stroke of genius (luck actually) we went river left around an island that everyone else went right. We ended up passing everyone! At this point we were the 6th boat off the water and were having a great race. Once out of the boat, the rest of the race would be on foot. A quick change of shorts and socks and we headed up the mountain. This was by far the hardest part of the race. No trails, no level ground. The mountain is basically a gigantic pile of boulders so we hopped boulders up and down. We had 15k to go and were really feeling it going up the mountain. It was so humid that sweat was pouring out, almost like I was in a rain shower. I ate a pack of jerky, took some enduralytes and was drinking Nuun. I knew that if I was going to bonk this is where it would happen. Fortunately, none of us bonked and we made it to the CP at the top, called Dan's Pulpit. It's one of the better scenic overlooks on the AT and the breeze and view were fantastic. But we had to move on. The clock was ticking and we had 90 minutes for 10k bushwhack. Working together we scrambled down the mountain. We had a couple falls but no one got hurt.

It was so slippery from the humidity I felt like I had Armor All on the soles of my shoes. We eventually found some old washed out double track and followed that down the mountain to the last CP. All we had to do was get to the finish. 4k and 40 minutes--did we bushwhack up and over the last mountain (saving 2k) or use the road and go around the mountain? The sounds of rifle fire on the mountain helped out decision and we took the road. We ran it in to the finish line with 10 minutes to spare!

Since the race was at a Civil Air Patrol base, they had an obstacle course that we could do for a bonus point. I never like to pass up bonus points and we were off the clock, so we did it. IT was great! Monkey bars over water, rope swings and climbs, wall climbs, inverted ladders, it was Boelker's wet dream (but no burpees!) A couple other teams had people fall in the water but we finished strong. We turned in our passport and immediately started re-hydrating with beer. We finished 2nd Place in the 3-Male category (they merged the Elite (us) and Masters divisions and a Masters team beat us by 2 points). Overall this was a super fun yet challenging race. This could have easily been an 18-24 hour race. Only one team hit all the points.

20 July 2014

Team Commie Bar wins 24hour Blue Ridge Bear Epic Adventure Race in Buchanan VA

The Commie Boys smoked the course at the Blue Ridge Bear Epic 24 hour Adventure Race in Buchanan VA this weekend.  Here's a race recap....

A Big thank you to our sponsors:
Montrail Shoes
Mountain Hardware
Xendurance Nutrition
Epic Cameras
Slick Products
Honey Stinger


Team Roster:
Todd Copley - Team Captain and paid assassin pace counter....
Chris Farrell - Chief humper and medical officer....
Eric Lapp - Lead Navigation and team mule...


All three of us went into the race saying "my training is way off because of injuries.  You gotta take it easy on me" !  And of course we then proceed to push and challenge each other all night.  In the world of ultra racing you will pass thru highs and lows.  You need teammates that can lift you up and you need to do the same....

In the morning we checked in to Race HQ.  The race, from the maps, looked pretty straight forward.  A lot of trekking and foot time... note to self:  add another pair of socks to the pack....


We made a massive strategic navigation decision before starting.  The start would be on BIKE and there were 10 points out there.  We needed to get CP 10 before proceeding and we decided that we would bust gut out there up the mountain to get CP 10 and then leave the rest of the points for our return in the morning.  The remainder of the optional CPs looked grouped together and if we got back early enough tomorrow we could knock them off and not worry about getting bogged down early in the race and also not worry about hitting the cut off times on the paddles section.

The Race Start:  We took off in the pack and hammered out the long climb up to CP10.  We punched it on the passport and immediately turned around and absolutely flew down the mountain back to the river and the put in.

Once there we had to figure a way to load all three bikes into the two canoes along with the paddle bag.  We did this fairly quickly.  I had stationed large sheets of cardboard in the paddle bag that allowed us to pile bikes on top of each other without worrying about pedals through spokes, ect....

We loaded up and got on the water.  Before getting on the water I looked around the staging area and Chris had forgotten to put the dry bag in his canoe!!!!!  That would have ended our race if we forgot that.  

Once on the water we immediately hooked up a tow line to better pull the Chris who was alone in a canoe.  Eric and I were in the other with two bikes.  We were heavy and the water was not that high in sections which caused us to bump around the small Class I sections.  

The first paddle section was about 7 miles long.  Once there we had to unload and stage the bikes here.  We'd meet up with the bikes again later.  After unloading the bikes we strategically staged some food and water here for the return.  We clambered aboard the canoes again and moved on down the river.  After another 10 mile section we pulled up to the take out point.  The 17 miles along with the bike unload had taken 4.5 hours or so.  We were way ahead on the course in front of everyone but remember we passed on all optional points during the first bike section.

At the take out point we did a clothes change and chowed down some crap food that we brought along and could throw back into the paddle bags and leave there.  It started raining softly on the mountain and I was actually looking forward to a soft summer rain.  By the time we hit the trail the rain had stopped however but we had a long, long, long trek in front of us.  

The trekking section was where we planned on spending our evening.  It looked like by trying to clear this section we'd surpass the 26 mile marathon distance by several miles.  Eric Lapp took over on navigation and we were moving quickly.  We planned an attack on the segment and we started pegging the points.  Eric was amazing in the navigation and we were surgically attacking the points with readings on elevation, pace count, time and terrain reading.  
I'll go back tomorrow and see exactly how the points worked out (believe it or not you forget a lot out there!!).  We made a big decision to go out and get a point (CP 19) that was way off the grid.  This paid off for later on in building a point spread on the contendors.

We walked and spiked points all night.  At about 3am in the morning we made our first navigation error.  You can expect this after trekking for 12 hours and in the dark.  We went after point 27 and we drifted off the azimuth and ended up in a re-entrant way down a mountain in a mountain laurel patch that we had to claw our way out of.  We were literally crawling up a mountain that was about a scant 10 degrees from vertical.  This smoked us and we knew that you only have so many "fires" left in the engine when this happens.  During the last portion of the trek and after the failed attempt on CP 27 I was smoked.  


Sometimes that manifests itself in anger or frustration or something else.  Eric had proposed what I thought was an outlandish idea.  He wanted to bushwack down a massive re-entrant and valley and crawl up another ridge line to get to the trail system we needed to be on.  The alternative was a fairly straight forward movement on a known fire road albeit this would add another 2 miles or so to the movement.  Chris was adament about not bushwacking the section.  I was not to happy with considering another crawl up a mountain either.  Ultimately as team captain I made the decision to take the fire road knowing we would add miles to our trek.  I just felt it was best for the team although we "may" have lost some time.  We needed the time to just walk and gather our thoughts.  Eric did a great job of accepting the decision and led the way in the navigation.  

We knocked off several more points and once in this section decided to begin moving towards the bike stage.  We had at least a 6 mile movement from where we were at and we had already been walking and running for 12 hours.  The feet were barking and the legs screaming on the long gradual descent back to the valley floor and the river where we left the bikes. 
During these movements where there is not much navigation required, we each tend to slip into our own worlds.  The communication is infrequent.  We're tired and our minds are each going their own way.  I plugged into some music to get my motivation up for the rest of the race.  We still had 6 hours of hard racing in front of us....  Good night everyone... 


We hit the river at 0430 or so and took some time to eat and change clothes and get the bikes ready.  The bike portion back to the town was not long (7 miles) but we wanted to have maximum time on the optional points we passed over at the beginning of the race.  We hammered out the ride in the dark with our lights a blazing....  

Once back near town we climbed towards the trail system.  Chris was complaining about the climb.  I knew he was tired.  We got over into the conglomeration of points and by this time I had gained my second wind but Eric and Chris were not moving well.  We had to do a bunch of trekking and we all had problems doing this in our bikes shoes.  We also had some initial navigation problems that added to the apathy.  We literally stumbled across CP 3.  From there we tried to find the attack point for CP 4 but failed.  We were sinking in the early hours of the morning.  This is where we should nail all these points and we were sitting around and having problems with the map.  I finally took a lead in heading up a long re-entrant to nail CP 2.  Chris had been stung by a bee and couldn't make the trip up the creek bed.  This success raised our optimism and we all ventured down the stream to make a climb up to nail CP 1.  


We did it!  Back out on the road it was 0730.  We made the decision that we did not have the time to head over to CP 5.  We shook hands and bombed the downhill back to the finish.

All together we nailed 21 of 30 points which was good enough for the win in 3 man open division....  Another 24 hour race in the books.

TCOPE 
Team Commie Bar

03 June 2014

Extreme World Sports Festival - Montpellier France

Wow....  that's really all I can say....  5 days of the best....