I haven't done much writing here in a while. As previously noted, the photography, getting and being married, working, training, and racing has been taking precedence over the writing. However, I got some positive feedback on the blog this weekend (i.e., I heard tell that someone was actually reading it), so I figured it would be worth while to jot down some notes about my season thus far.
The official Chicago cyclocross season doesn't begin for another few days, but we at SnowyMountain Photography have been hard at work. There was the trip to Hawaii, the climb up Haleakala, and a full road season. Road you say? Yes. This year instead of racing in the dirt and the hills of Wisconsin, we ended up staying closer to home and risking our lives in the circles of death that are American-style criteriums. Those are all stories for another day perhaps. This story is about September of 2014.
I spent most of the summer ignoring the biggest race of my year, the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival, a 40 mile point-to-point mountain bike race near my Aunts and Uncles's cabins in Hayward WI. I applied for the lottery in February, and was selected with 2,100 other people for the full-length race. Instead of doing what I should have been doing, and spending long hours on my mountain bike, I mostly ignored it. I can count on one hand the number of times I pulled Stumpy off the wall and rode this summer.
But at the beginning of September it was time to get serious and start planning, and not just this weekend but the entire month. Looking at the race calendar I saw something disturbing. With a little bit of planning, a few nights in a hotel, we could race six races in three consecutive weekends. I broached the subject with my wife/coach/partner/love/soigneur/manager hoping she would talk me out of it, and instead she thought it was a great idea. So we made a plan, and when the time came, we executed.
My wife suggested we head out to a local park on the way to the gym, and she would spend some time video taping me going over barriers. I took my bike on a quick loop around the park, and after 3 minutes of riding on grass I had that awful realization that nothing I had been doing for the last 8 months had done anything to prepare me for the start of CX season. Maybe next summer I need to remember to pull the CX bike and the MTB off the wall a little more often and get dirty. But I digress. RelayCX was also a pretty big shocker to the old system. I got a good placement on the LeMans start, and then proceeded to get passed by almost everyone on the first lap. Sigh. Thankfully my partner was able to battle back, and we ended up in 20th place (out of 28 teams).
I had a few days then to ramp up my practices. I burned in a small loop in the easement behind our house, and rode laps until my wrist hurt so bad I couldn't go any more. At the Night Bison, I started out hard and ended up alone off the front, and stayed with the lead 10 until an attack at mile 38 fractured us into 6 and 4, then 5 and 3. I felt pretty good at the end of the ride having covered 53miles of gravel at an average speed of 20.2mph.
On Saturday the 6th we headed out early on a drive to the first official CX practice in Sheboygan, WI. The drive up was sunny and uneventful. We arrived in time to see some of our friends from Chicago race in the women's and SS race, and to pre-ride the course a few times. It was familiar as I had raced a WORS race in the same park a year earlier, although there was less single track and we stayed entirely on the south-side of the road. The Eliminator (steep hill) was still part of the course, and as I tried to ride up it the first time, my chain skipped when I stood up to start putting down power. I went to the bottom, and tried again. Again my chain slipped.
I took my bike to SRAM neutral support, and Ben hooked me up with a new chain. After the next race I went back with my new chain, and tried again. Less skip, but I still couldn't make it to the top. I had to dismount just below the crest. The rest of the course was bumpy and fast with a steep gravelly descent.
As I was walking out of registration after my final pre-race trip to the rest room, I saw one of the promoters walking out the door with a piece of paper in his hand. I asked him if it was the start-list for the Cat 3 race. He nodded, and I asked him
"How many do we have?"
"Fifty-two"
"Wow, that's really good considering there were only 3 people pre-registered two days ago"
He chuckled.
"Just kidding, there are only eleven."
"Finally! A reasonable chance at a top-10 finish in a Cat 3 race."
With only 11 pre-registered, I wasn't two concerned about staging. I arrived as other started to gather, we were loaded into the start grid, and we were off. With my explosive speed off the line, I got the hole shot. Unfortunately with a gifted teenager or two behind me, I wasn't able to hold it for long. Morleigh was taking video on what I think was the third lap, and I had already fallen back to sixth. It was a close 6th, and although I was hurting, it felt like I could maybe recover for a few laps and still contend for a spot on the podium. Then, on the steep gravelly downhill I got a pinch flat. I could see the rock coming, triangular like a shark's tooth sticking out of the ground, but at 28mph there was no time to change lines and I hit it hard. I was completely flat by the bottom of the hill, and on foot for probably half the course back to the pit.
Andy Swartz, father of Caleb who was leading the race, was in the pit and asked me what I needed. I yelled "mountain bike", and he gave me a puzzled look. I tossed my cx bike at him as I entered the pit, and ran over to my mountain bike, which I had the foresight to place in the pit. I grabbed my Garmin and went out to finish the race. I was there for training, so there was no point in getting a DNF. I was lapped by the leaders shortly after leaving the pit, but I couldn't grab back on and keep pace. Besides, I had another race tomorrow, there was no point in turning myself inside out trying to make up an entire lap. I finished the race DFL, 8th place out of 8 finishers with 3 DNFs. Not the way I wanted to start the season.
We packed up that night and drove back south and stayed in Brookfield, WI. The next morning we were up early and headed to Lake Geneva for WORS #10, Tredfest. The goal was to get more time in the saddle, so instead of racing Cat 2 Sport as I did the previous year, I raced the Open Clydesdale category. It was three laps instead of two over a much longer course. This was the 4th year in a row that I was racing the course, so I wasn't too concerned with pre-riding. My main concern was the rock garden which we had been routed around in the sport category. I got Morleigh set up on top of the hill with chairs, tents, and the cooler, and then went into the woods to run over the rock garden a few times.
I probably should have looked a little more before attempting it to find the right line, but I took a quick glance, and then rode up the trail to come at it with speed. I made it all the way through the garden unscathed, but then as my wheel dropped out of the garden over the last big rock, my weight came forward and I tumbled over my handlebars onto the ground. Thankfully I was clear of the rocks, so I landed on dirt and was uninjured. I picked up my bike, went back to the top and tried it again. The second time I made it through by taking a slightly different line, and keeping my weight farther back. Lesson learned. I didn't want to go all the way down, so I slammed on the brakes before I hit the chute, and ended up stopping and twisting on my front tire, pulling away the bead and losing about 20psi of pressure. I walked my bike back to the tent, inflated the tire, and went off to warm up. It was what it was, I was either going to make it or miss it. The bast strategy, I was advised, was to let it rip.
My race started shortly after the pro race, and while we were in the starting grid we found out that one of the riders in my wave had put up a cash prize for the pro men and women who made it around the first lap the fastest. Someone asked what we got, and Don, the legendary race organizer said, "Nothing, there are enough sand-baggers in this field already, we're not about to reward any of you for that." I was certainly not sandbagging.
When Don yelled "go" to start the race we surged up the hill. The course started with a straight climb, then wound around and back down, and then up 2 more times in the first half mile. The last climb was around the back and all the way to the top. Like the rock garden, the top of the hill was reserved for the pro/comp guys so I had not climbed past the lift-tower before in a race. I was in the back half of my starting wave by the time we hit the second climb. I was able to make up some spots on the third climb, as many guys blew their wads on the first two, even though it's the 3rd that is most important. At the top of the 3rd you dive into some really fun descending single track, and have time to recover and no time to pass. If you're fast through the single track, and no one slow is in front of you, it's easy to make up time. At the start I was only able to identify 4 riders in my category with the "C" written on their number plate. After the third climb there were two in front and one behind. I caught up to the first rider as we were heading up the Son of a Butch climb. I could see that I was faster than him in the single track, and he was very tentative through the rock garden. So I made a move and passed him on the open double track, and tried to open up a gap. 3/4 of the way through the first lap, I started to realize how long 7 miles of single track really was, and I backed off the tempo a bit so I could actually finish all three laps and not blow up too completely.
It was fun to be on the mountain bike, but neither my back nor my wrist were strong enough for the task at hand. Both were very sore, and I had to back off the gas even more in the second lap to allow my back time to recover. At the start of the 3rd lap, I caught up with another group of riders, one of whom I recognized from previous years racing WORS. He was hurting and in the open of the ski runs I could see him free-falling back towards me. By the time we got to the final climb I was nipping at his heels, and I squeezed by him right before we entered the single track. I had never beaten this particular rider before (and I really wanted to), so having him behind me gave me a little bit extra on the next two big climbs.
I don't remember much else about the last lap. I know I caught up to and lapped a few of the women in the open field. I know that the top 5 in the men's pro race lapped me. My back was on fire, my wrist hurt so badly that I was seriously considering going and getting and X-ray, and my arms were tired enough that my handling was getting very sloppy. There was nothing in my legs left to climb, so I spent a lot of time sitting down on climbs and spinning, something I rarely do. However, I did not see any C's pass me at the end, so I was pretty certain that I had ended up 2nd in my category, and that is how I ended up. We broke down our encampment, and headed south.
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