Finally

Finally the mountainbike season is over. It is hard to impart tone to anything typed or written these days, so I'll have to spell it out. With the exception of the two races I missed it has been a solid 6 months of racing. Yesterday wrapped it up in Beechwood at the Beechwood Blaster. It was a friendly affair and plenty of people attended.

I had left Madison in plenty of time to preride and make adjustments and once on the highway I noticed a Rover with a Carver 69er on the back. Once I got close enough I could see it was a rigid singlespeed 69er. I sarcasticly thought "gee, I wonder where he's headed?" It turned out to be Sam.

After registering I hopped on the Ferrous with the same 34x19 gearing from Sheboygan. There were quite a few single speeds so everyone was asking what the gearing of the day would be. Most of the fast guys were running 34x20 or a 32t variation. After one lap trailing the 1 and 2 lap racers I decided a 21 would be a good idea if I wanted to finish 4 laps.

There was enough climbing to make it worth while. All the while I'm preriding, a 14 year old was shadowing me on his 26" singlespeed with a 32x18. I let him go by on a climb (yup, I let him by. that's my story and I'm sticking to it) and he looked right at home on a singlespeed. Turns out he lives there so he had everything dialed, including his youthful energy.

I finished my lap and found Bubba, Megan and Rick at the registration tent. They were blowing off the end of year Team Extreme group ride but would show up of the party. Rick was running Ss but Bubba had his Rockhound 1x9. Megan had her soon to be replaced Cannondale. (hint, hint Bubba)

There were all the usual players from a WORS or WEMS race. It would be easier to list who wasn't there... Jesse,Marco ,Matter and Trek Factory Squad.

With the blast of a rather nice looking over/under shotgun the race began. I settled into a nice 100rpm tempo and all the multispeeds began to filter around me. Nobody really started coming back to me. It quickly became apparent only the fast folks from all the levels were there for the 3 and 4 lap races. I kept spinning away and at the end of the first lap I stopped for a quick beer.

Oh yeah, the beer table. The organizers had set up a table of Specher Oktoberfest before the end of the lap. If a racer drank one of the ~8 oz cups of beer they'd get a time deduction. 1st cup = 30 seconds, 2nd cup = 45 seconds, 3rd cup = 75 seconds and I forget what the 4th cup deduction was. So that should tell you that the focus of the event was to have a good time.

The trick to the beer stop is to drink the beer quickly and get going again. I'm sure there's plenty of singlespeeders, fixie riders and bike messangers who think they can drink and ride. Bullshit. Unless they've Hashed they're amatures. While the beer was too good for down-downs and 8 oz is half-way to a proper measure, it felt good to take a 5 second break and get refreshed. I did that each of my 3 laps and it was well worth it.

Most of the lap was challenging with one exception. I don't know what the locals called it but I call it the "Marble Garden." On one of the last technical sections of the lap there is a ridge with roots and a few rocks. As the ridge wanes, there is a 10'-15' drop or descent into a collection of rounded rocks in an area maybe 20' square. There is no actual line as each time the rocks get rolled around and moved every which way. It was rough but as with the preride lap it was quite ridable. On my second lap I kept swapping places with a guy on a full squish multispeed. As we approached the Marble Garden I said aloud "you'd better ride this section, I'm right on you." He said he could and would so I gave him a 5' buffer, which wasn't enough. He dumped it right in the middle of the rocks and I had nowhere to go but into him. By fault for staying so close. In the process of trying to protct my ankle I tweaked it a bit along with puncturing/scraping my left leg. The blood was minimal but the ankle didn't like me. We pulled in to the beer table together and I assessed my status. I decided to try one more lap and see how the ankle would fare. I stayed with Mr full squish for most of the lap but he lost me on the climbs. My legs were done. On the last long climb Ronsta came by me and said "Go Tim." Great, I'd been lapped. A moment later I realized and said "hey Ron, you're in the lead!" I'm sure he thought "thank you Captain Obvious." He was flying on his Voodoo geared 34x20. Bender came by me a short time later, behind by maybe a minute or two. Then Carlos rocketed by me on the singletrack. I decided to pull the rip-cord and finish the lap and be done with my day.

I'd been seeing a 26" wheeled singlespeed trailing me on the last lap so I did have some motivation to keep pushing. As I stopped at the beer table to have the 3rd cup of beer he came by and finished. The goof-ball on the announcing platform said something like "he nipped you at the line" so I pointed out that I was on my 3rd time deduction beer and he was possibly 2 minutes behind me... plus I had a beer.

After changing clothes there was plenty of food and a pallet of Berghoff Oktoberfest in bottles to consume. I toned my drinking down but still had a good time. The two high points after the race were...

At a slightly well-weathered picnic table Ronsta, Bender, Gabriel and I were seated on one side. Bubba decided to join us. As he sat the metal support of the bench gave way and bent down 6 -8 inches. It wasn't his ~200# as much as it was Ronsta Bender & Gabriel's ~400# and my 205#.

The other was Ronsta talking to Bender, and I'll quote...

Ronsta "you know when I passed you in the beginning?"
Bender "yeah?"
Ronsta "I wasn't pedalling."
Bender *expression of puzzlement*
Ronsta "I was just coasting"
Bender *expression of disgust/amusement*

The rest of the table errupts into laughter having heard a something along the lines of "neener, neener, I was faster than you today."

Beechwood was a good end for the season even if my body took a beating. Today I'm sore and aching but I'm looking forward to my next race in February.