Thursday, May 24, 2012

Bone Ride

The Bone Ride a 160 mile ride is put on by former Tour De France racer Tom  Schuler.  We ride from his house in Wauwatosa to madison and back. You can join the ride anywhere on the route but most people start at his house or at Attitude Sports in Pewaukee.  Only knowing it was going to be a long day in the saddle I had to pack a lot of food and drink.  I had pockets full of PowerBar gelsCliff BarsCliff Blocks and a new food on the list Pop Tarts. I also tried some Enzo Button hole chamois cream. This stuff works great it has a subtle cooling affect and without it I don't think i'd be able to sit today. On the way out the pace was really moderate. We were riding at 20MPH, but since you were in a draft you do't have to work very hard at all.  We made it to madison just under 4hrs. Once we arrived we rode around the capital and headed to lunch. Myself and many others headed to Noodles & CO. After putting down a big bowl of pasta some of us rode over to a local coffee shop, just down the street from yellow jersey bicycle, and had some espresso.  We then rode over to yellow jersey bicycle got a group pic and headed home.  Just outside of madison I was riding in the lead group and all of a sudden things blew up. We were really hammering and realizing I wouldn't be able to hold this pace for another 70 miles I fell back with Ric Damm, Sam Tobias and a handful of others.  We tried to start a pace line but people kept attacking off the front trying to catch the lead group. These people quickly fell off our group and we got a good rotation going.  We made it to Oconomowoc where some stopped at a gas station to fill up on water. I kept going but had to stop in Pewaukee to go to the bathroom.  Good thing Pat Janisch also stopped because other wise I would have been on my own for the last 15miles. I pulled Pat out of Pewaukee until North Ave then he took over for a bit and we traded off pulls and slowly made it back to Tom's house. With 159 miles in my legs I rolled home and had finished up with 160.04 miles.  I came inside showered, sat down on the couch and fell asleep at 7pm.  Time to get some good R&R.  

Rhinelander

WORS number 2 was held at camp Tesomas just outside of Rhinelander. Last year at this race Jack Schirpke invited my parents and I to stay in a cabin with him.  Thankfully we got to stay in that same cabin this year.  Since we had this cabin the whole weekend, my dad and I drove up friday and got in late.  The next morning we got up, did some things around town and headed out for a pre ride.  I went out with teammate Nathan Guerra, and Wilhelm, master mechanic at the trek tent. After doing a lap I realized this was going to be a hot and dusty race.  On race day it was 80 degrees and with the rain holding off, it didn't seem like it was going to very different conditions from the pre ride.  After watching my dad race in the sport race I got kitted up and started my warm up. After the warm up I headed to the line.  Everyone was already at the back of the start shout and I was sitting about 5th row.   Once Don called us up I moved up 1 or 2 spots. Don called GOOOOO and we were off. After the first turn I was already up to the top 20 and was battling to move up.  Once we hit the first section of single track I was about 15th.  Powering through the first lap I was feeling good and flew through the start shout out onto my 2nd lap.  During this lap the temperature started to drop and it was getting darker out.  About 1/2 way through it started to downpour and my dad said it was also hailing and that the tornado sirens were going off.  Not knowing if Don was going to call the race Matt Gehling and I took off.  We got to the start/ finish and Don say's "keep going you've got 2 more".  This little bit of rain was just enough to make the trails perfect, the dust was gone and the trails were tacky.  With new found energy I tried my hardest not to blow up on the start straight.  I got through the 3rd lap with ease and was going strong on the 4th lap until the rain came back.  This time the sky really opened up and didn't hold back.  It poured so hard it created rivers that ran through the trails and created giant puddles everywhere.  With no brakes and my cassette clogged up with sand I pushed through the last lap and rolled through the finish. I think the only thing not clogged with mud were my crank brothers peddles Now with the rain finally over, I found my dad and he told me, he thought I finished 12th. After waiting about 5 minutes WORS already had the results posted and I was officially 13th overall and 2nd in age group.  I rolled back to the cabin showered and went back for  the awards ceremony.  While waiting I said to my dad "watch they will pay out top 12". We waited and my age group came up.  David Flaten (left) got called up, then Kyle Sarasin (right) and finally myself. I walked up and got my award
 Even though I was second in my age group, Joe Maloney, who is really killing it this year, took 7th overall and was on the overall podium and doesn't count toward the age group podium. After the podium it hit me I missed out on the overall podium.  As I guessed only the top 12 got payed out.  

After a long day in the saddle and a long drive home I need to get some good recovery as I'm doing the Bone Ride on wednesday. Below are some more post race mud pics. Check out http://www.xtrphoto.com/ for some great photos of all the racers.  


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

WORS #1 Iola

WORS #1 is finally here and gone. Its been a long awaited race and it was a great way to start of the MTB season.  The day before a couple Ripon teammates, coach Ric Damm and I all drove up to pre ride the course on saturday. The course was beautiful. But this wasn't going to last long. After we left I got a call from my parents saying that it was starting to rain. This rain wouldn't let up until early sunday morning only to start up again around 7.
The Storm before is on its way
This storm only got worse throughout the day. Since the storms where so bad Don, the founder of WORS, decided to push the start time of the sport race back by 30 minutes and shortened there race. He also decided to shorten the comp and elite race by 1 lap. Now only having to do 20 miles I new this was going to be a fast race. After a quick warm up, I got to the line around 1:20pm.  I was sitting 4th row, which I was pretty happy about because I knew that everyone in front of me was a seasoned elite veteran.  After Don's famous GOOOOOO, we took off.  I pushed off but had to dab because the guy in front of me didn't start to move like I had anticipated.  I pushed off again and finally got going. Cruising up the first hill, then down into the bowl and making a hard right we started to climb again.  I wasn't the happiest with my position so I tried to move up but it wasn't happening. After climbing for a bit we flew back down into the bowl and then right up another big hill which is usually rideable but with all the rain it was like trying to ride up a greased slip and slide. All of us got off and ran it. I re-mounted, clipped right in with no problem, thanks to Crank Brothers for making amazing pedals, and got going again.  Now realizing what kind of race this was going to be all I could think about was collegiate nationals which had similar conditions, except Iola was much flatter and didn't have a river running through the center of the trail.  After racing for 3 laps just behind Casey and Pete I was in no mans land because Casey and Pete only had to do 3 laps.  Trying to push and catch some of the people in front of me I ran out of trail and my first WORS race was in books.  I realize now i've got a long way to go but for the first race of the year and my first elite race ever, I didn't really know what to expect.  I ended up finishing 2nd in age group but got a 1st place medal because Joe, who took first, was also on the podium for the overall prize, so he doesn't count for the age group.  I also got 12th out of the cat 1 males and 28th overall out of every male elite racer. Not knowing what to expect I can only hope things get better from here but we will have to wait until Rhinelander to see.  Here are some post race pictures. 

Jason and I.