Participation

All things considered the outcome could have been much worse.

The drive up to Stump Farm and Camp Montee surprised me. I exited early and drove through Waupon. After Cupcake told me the rains were still soaking the Farm I decided to head directly to the Montees in Sturgeon Bay. After missing the 57 exit, I took 29 through Green Bay knowing I would intersect 57. Forgetting that I should have stayed on 41 to the 43 connector to 57. It was scenic.

I rolled into the Bay of Sturgeons just as night was falling to find quite a group waiting for Gretchen to fire up the kitchen. Russell, Rick, Liz, Matt, Claire and I were treated to a fine pasta feed and a Cohen brother's movie.

Sunday I arose to the sound of a raccoon in the kitchen. I was mistaken, it was Tim putting the dishes away. Gretchen made pancakes for everyone before we packed up and headed to the Stump Farm.

This is for Angie: I'm not blaming you now, but during the race I was telling myself "you shouldn't have let her guilt you into cleaning the chain."

All the Open Single Speeders line up and we're give the Faux "Goooo." I had a decent mid-pack start up the hill and I see a crash to my far left. Around the corner and along the short straight we go and I've already spun out my 34x18 when I hear a 'pop' from my drive train and my cadence goes from ~110 rpms to ~200. I look down and my chain has fallen off. I put it back on and get rolling again. I try bridging to the straggler ahead of me and I'm half-way there when Mark Burkholz passes me. It was he who had crashed at the start but he had a points lead to defend so he was on a mission. I settled into a tempo with my heart rate at 160-ish and was doing fine until Rob Hoffman caught me. I gave him some encouragement as his group left me behind. Some distance after that I burped the rear tire in the singletrack just ahead of Sean Miller. Hope I didn't get any latex on you buddy. I pulled over and aired it up, took a nature break and got rolling again. As I cleared the straight past Liz with the hand-up the chain dropped again. As I got rolling again I was in the middle of the slower Sport 25-45 year olds. I relaxed and rode at their pace for as long as I could stand it. I finally couldn't take it anymore. they were rolling in the singletrack in 42x12 or thereabouts and literally grunting as they stood on the pedals to keep moving. I got preachy for a while and attempted to coach them into a better gearing . Hearing ~4 sets of shifters in unison and having the pace pick up was gratifying. I had rested long enough so I jumped them before the next singletrack and let them suffer together. Until my chain dropped again. Shortly before the end of the 2nd lap the lead Elite Men caught us. The Sport group peeled off at the finish and I was left alone. I got my bottle from Liz and had a Goo. I pushed my heart rate back up to 160 and was rolling.

A word about the trails at the Stump Farm. Smooth. Once the rain and riders had done their laps the trail was smooth and swoopy. I felt fine and the chain only dropped twice more so I had a nice rhythm for the last lap. I knew I'd be the last SS but I wasn't as far back from 1st and it was the longest race of the season. I was nearly 15 minutes behind Tim who was racing at a "gentlemanly" pace so I am content with my performance.

Afterwards I was talking to Dave Thomas and Mark Burkholz about their races, they were having the same chain issues I was having. In fact it was the popping chain that caused Mark to go over his bars at the start. Fortunately nobody else went down with him. Hmmm, I wonder if they cleaned their chains too?

Oh yeah, Russell broke his front hub flange but it didn't impede his progress. It was a prototype so everyone can rest easy about their hubs.

Speaking of prototypes, Jesse Lalonde ended up beating Brian Matter in the Elite Men's race. He's rolling a work in progress Superfly SS with a belt drive from a Trek commuter. With the equivalent gearing of 46x20 he figures it to be his weapon of choice for a Chequamgon repeat. Yeah, 46x20 on a trail everyone else on a single speed was rolling ~2:1 from 32x15 to 34x16. The man's got motor.

We wagon trained back into GB for a fine mexican dinner. Yes, we were hungry enough to eat a mexican for dinner. Not much happened after dinner. Just the 2 hour drive back to Madison where I was greeted by 4 hungry cats.