Ryan.. "only" is "5th" ride this year. Must be busy selling beachfront property in Arizona too.
DJ John mixing it up the hill
Me pre-post failure
Yesterday was the first of the WORS Marathon events. Everyone was trapped in the recollections of last years 24-9 event which was shortened to ~18 hours due to sever weather. Well, if 120v tingles I wonder what a lightening bolt feels like. I was dry when I rolled in 3 hours behind schedule at 6. I joined Dan from Madison East and we rolled out for a lap with my 34x17. All was going well until just after the first single track when Dan's rear tire popped. I offered to wait but he said he didn't have a tube so he was just going to hoof it back. I rolled on. The 17 felt just a bit too tall on the climbs. There was enough climbing it paid to have a gear that worked. I briefly talked to Jesse and he suggested a gear that would allow climbing rather than running. The climbs were long enough that I'd lose too much time to others who rode while I ran. Turns out that would be moot.
During the evening as everyone from Muddy Cup and other SS's sat around being neighborly (I brought two half-gallons of Ale Asylum) a bird began singing "whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill" quite loudly. "Hey, what kind of bird is that?" someone asked. Um, uh, I dunno? A crow maybe? A Blackberry was used to check the NHL score and the forecast for the night's weather. There was a big yellow blob heading toward Marathon County. Cool, I'd already planned to change the 17 for a 19 and install meatier tires but this cinched it for me.
At 2:30am the song of the Whippoorwill rang out again "whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill, whippoorwill" quite loudly, followed by someone "Shut the fuck up!"
After a dry night I awoke and found my way over to the Muddy Cup trailer where Ben Griggs reprised the Whippoorwill. Rick nearly snorted coffee out his nose. After the morning ritual and bike adjustments it was race time.
The staging was classic mass start/chaos. But everyone managed to start without crashing. The leadout seemed to take forever on the wide open ski trails. The pace with all the multispeeders wasn't too bad. I'd have been in the front with a 17 but with the 19 I was surrounded. Everything came to a halt when the trail narrowed to the singletrack. There was much bitching and moaning by the dumbasses at the back. My reply as I waited my turn was "shut the hell up. if you're so fast why weren't you the first one into the woods instead of back there waiting your turn behind a singlespeed" They were further mocked by others and eventually we all got through the bottleneck. By the time the first lap was completed the rain had become steady and everyone had found their tempo and position. Just before coming around the corner to the start/finish straight I was caught by #9051 on a Celeste C.U.S.S. so I said aloud "just when I thought this was going to be fun I suddenly feel the need to race" He smiled and it was on. Liz, Rick's sweetie, was handing up fresh bottles for Rick, Russell and me. By fresh I don't mean full of fluids, I mean absent of muck where I was putting my lips. As we went through the S/F area he pulled away but I reeled him back in by the bottom of the first long climb and made it stick by the time we got to the real nasty climb. The second lap was good tempo work and the trail was good as long as I stayed to the outer edges or the granite gravel. The mud was like pottery clay and would slow me down like velcro. As I came out of the woods by the S/F area I saw DJ Johnny and another BKB jersey passing the other way which meant they were ~3 minutes ahead of me. I grabbed a second bottle from Liz and sucked down a Gu before hitting the climb for the last lap. Just as I finished the flat area after the climb I could hear the sound of Brian Matter steaming up the trail behind me. I got out of his way just as we entered the first singletrack where Dan had flatted the day before. I tried to stay on his wheel but guess what happened. Then, to add injury to insult, as I exited the single track I sat down and my LP carbon seatpost snapped off at the seat collar. Lovely. I quickly decided I'd ride standing up the rest of the race, roughly 8 miles, rather than DNF. So I tucked the seat with seatbag under the back of my bibs/jersey and got going just as Jesse lapped me.
While I'd been riding up Olbrich sled hill out of the saddle I had recovered by sitting down. No such luxury during the last lap. I started catching riders with no choice but to hammer up the speed out of the saddle. It's not a technique I'd recommend but my quads feel "alive" today. I did my share of "look at the singlespeed without a seat passing you" as I went along but I was complemented by most as being determined or strong enough to finish rather than DNF. Dumb enough was more accurate.
In the end I don't think my broken post affected my 8th place finish. I was 7 minutes behind Scott (also BKB) but 9 minutes ahead of the guy behind me.
Rick won in a sprint and if he keeps it up I'm going to start doing dirty tricks to his bike. Bells in his innertubes for a start. Other BKB finishers were Ryan in 4th, and DJJohnny in 6th.
Special thanks to Liz for giving me hand-ups. Thanks to Rusty for the images.
I think for the next race I'll try it without a front wheel.
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