9/17/06-Chequamegon Aftermath
Great weekend with great weather for the '06 Chequamegon. We did a quick ride a camp followed by packet pick-up Friday night and dined at the Sawmill. Saturday morning, back up early. We rolled into Hayward about 8:10 and put the bikes in line, pretty far back. I did a marginal warmup before heading over to the start. After we got rolling, the rollout actually went pretty smoothly for the spinfest that it is. I rode past a down Cindy Swift on HW 77. Best wishes Cindy!
Once we hit dirt I started picking some peopl off and moving up through the pack. A couple miles into the Birkie trail, I called out "on your left" and started to move by a guy. Just as I got even with his handlebars, he moved left, hooked my handlebars, and I went down hard. I came up feeling a bit worse for the wear and but was about to hop back on the bike, when I noticed that my saddle was not right. It had popped off the rails. I moved to the side of the trail to try to figure out the situation, and it quickly became apparent that there was no quick fix. I shoved the saddle in my camelback and got rolling, but most thoughts of actually racing were gone. I cruised as well as I could to the first aid station, and tried futily to pop the saddle back on the rails. After a few minutes of this, I went over and asked the first aid guy for a bit of athletic tape. With that, I taped the saddle back on the rails and took off, behind probably 1500 people. I was a bit frustrated, but after a bit, I got my head back in the game and started picking people off by the dozen. I would literally pass 10-15 people on a small rise. I went through 00 at about 1:15, which considering wasn't too bad. My original game plan had been to hang on in the first half and then attack the second (hillier) half with whatever was left. Now, I decided my new goal was to break 3 hours. I kept picking through bunches of people even on the gradual downhills, but when we hit fire tower climb, I was actually giddy. I had to get off for a couple of the pitches, but when I was off, I was RUNNING. During a couple of remounts, I had screwed up my tape job pretty well, so at the top of the climb I yelled out, "Duct tape, anyone got duct tape!" Some guy produced the goods and I wrapped the saddle but good. I hopped back on and took off down the hill. Somehow I was still passing people on most of the downhills, which riding the singlespeed, just shouldn't happen. When we hit the Birkie trail, I put gave it 100% and started flying by people again. Towards the end, it started to hur , but I was still able to push, so I kept going. I lost a few places on the last gravel road decent, but had them back before we hit the courses split again. After that, I was back on it 100% to the finish. I rolled in at 2:58:53. Mission accomplished. Looking at results, I was 1019th at 00 and 536th at the end. Based on how my legs felt all day, I think a top 200 would have been within reach without the issues, but that's racing. Mechanical issues abounded, but the folks that didn't have them seemed to all have good races. Long Shout Out list: Jesrin: hot. Kelly and Matt: Nice ride'n fellas. Julie Meyer: Holy fast. Tom Meyer: Kids race, but ridiculously fast, so I guess that's ok. Chapin: Nice party. Margaret and Sarah, way to hang tough. Mike Haag:Tearing it up in the crit. Many more that I missed, but my eyes are glazing over. Out.