The WORS beings

Saturday's preride told me two things about my fitness. I'm not as fit as I had hoped but I'm not that far from where I want to be, for a month ago. I'm caught in limbo. As I explained to Spencer Strigel after the race, I'm caught between gears. I could have ridden up all the climbs if I'd run a 21 or 22, but then I'd have been screwed on the flats where everyone else was running a 19, 18 or 17. I socialized with a trio of newbies camped across from me. They had great attitudes but I didn't get their names and they packed up and were gone before I finished my race. I hope I run into them again. I went into Iola for dinner and shared a table with Rick Walls and his Significant Other Elizabeth. Rick had a rough season last year in SS Comp so he downgraded to Sport. He was going to be running the same 34x19 so I felt somewhat more comfortable but I sensed he would be faster than me.

Race day brought slightly warmer temps and a desire to put a 20 on the back. I resisted and left the gearing alone and had a good warm-up ride with John. Don fucked us royally when he staged all the first timers and teen multispeeders in the front. The familiar faces of Stuart Sheldon and Josh Giffey were with me when the flag dropped. Stuart and others were gone but I found myself with KittenFactory for the first lap... well, most of it until he left me. I settled into a tempo and made the best of it. There was one SS within sight so I kept trying to gain ground. I slowly started to reel him in, especially on descents and the twisties. I put a solid move on him on the last part of the second lap and the tempo resumed. As I came out of the pine tree tunnel Ben Griggs told me I had another SS ahead and I should push the pace. Sooooo... back to work I went. Sure enough, as I began the first climb after the start I saw a SS in a green jersey walking. That was all the motivation I needed to climb that hill for the third time. He remounted as I got to the top and I showed him the fast lines around all the multispeeds on the way to the bowl. He rode the steeper climb after the bowl but I'd shot my wad climbing out of the bowl so I had to walk. I caught him again by the start of the next climb and the cycle began again. On the last hard climb I had nothing and he ran up leaving me with some spinning multis. I could still see him a couple hundred yards ahead so I wasn't going to give up. I concentrated on riding the technical sections as smoothly as possible without using the brakes and in no time I has on him. As I started to wind up to get his wheel he made a last second move on a group of much slower multis. I was stuck behind a 12-14 yr old but he was trying his best. I gave him words of encouragement and blasted cleanly past when the trail widened. By marker number 7 I had whittled his lead down to 50 feet but there was a Multi in the way. He was cool though, as I announced to him I needed to catch the guy ahead because he was in my class he said "no problem, he's been surging so we'll just have to stick with him. I'll let you around at the next wide spot." He upped his tempo and stayed at a fairly steady interval and as soon as the trail widened he let me pass. I closed on him gradually and then the back markers started to work for me. A woman on a multi had the trail blocked and wasn't the least bit interested in letting us around. At a straight section there wasn't room for a pass, but he went right so I went left and we squeezed by her. I knew I had him. As we exited the by marker 9 jeep road I dropped the hammer and spun it up. By the time I entered the pine tree tunnel I had at least a 100 feet on him. I kept on the gas just in case he was waiting to counter. It didn't happen. At the line I was almost 5 seconds ahead.

All in all it was a good race but if I had to rate my performance I give myself a B-. Here's the breakdown...

Bike handling ... A+
Gearing... A, given my conditioning
Conditioning... C
Focus... B+
Tempo... A

1st lap... 27:42 average HR 161
2nd lap... 27:50 average HR 162
3rd lap... 27:47 average HR 164

Total Official time 1:22:28.3 Total Average HR 162, Max HR 175

...and 10th place.

Time of the first place rider... 1:12:40.7
Rick... 1:12:42.2 and second place
Stuart... 1:15:04.0 and 4th
John... 1:18:06.0 and 6th
Josh... 1:29:44.4 and 14th

After putting on some warm clothes I joined John in rooting for friends and singlespeeders. Fellow BKB and former Sport rider Joel Coon gets my version of the Rube Goldberg Award for his bike. This year he's astride his Slingshot... with last year's thudbuster seatpost, but with a Cannondale Lefty fork. If ever there was a bike that looked like it could turn in 4 directions at once while absorbing every bump this one could do it. He did us proud finishing 7th in Comp SS. John Fang looked solid all race long on his multispeed powering to a 4th in his agegroup and 9th overall! Brett Gave finished 10th in age group despite being on a SS. Jesse and Marco creamed the experts, well most of them anyway, with Jesse finishing 3rd and Marco 6th.

I wondering if I want to try converting the M900 into a 69er and taking a shot at my age group for Lake Geneva.