Treadfest

            I have been looking forward to this race for awhile. I don’t typically do WORS races, but when it's just down the road and on an awesome course you'd be silly not to attend.

            My race would be about 90 minutes long which is a sprint compared to the races I usually attend.  I raced the Comp (Cat 2) which is one step down from the PRO/Cat1 racers.

10,9,8,7,6,5…………Goooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

Sprint, sprint, sprint! Straight up Grand Geneva Ski hill, started mid pack with about 20 guys ahead.

Crest the hill and fly back down, try to catch my breath without sucking to much dust.  Fly down a short gravel road and sneak past a couple guys.  Head back up the hill again and pass a few… try for one more and he closes the door on me.

Back down the hill, don’t touch those brakes! Carry that momentum back up the hill one more time… 4 guys ahead, one is wheezing,  bye bye.  3 more, one loses traction in the rocky corner.  2 more, I'm content with heading into the woods in third, then I find a way past this guy and I am in second.

Now the nerves are kicking in… this is where I want to be but not where I expected to be.  Keep pushing!  A couple miles of single track and we head into the rock garden, a popular spectator point.  People cheering, a guy with a super loud blow horn going off… somehow I am able to here Christina "Go David!"  She seemed to be caught up in it as well.

30 minutes in and lap 1 ends, time to start climbing the ski hill three times again.  Its easy though because I know after this I only need to do it one more time.  I see Christina again at the top of the climb, offering a fresh bottle, thing is that I haven't even pulled mine out yet.  I haven't even had time to think about nutrition or water or anything just GO!

Lap two ends and I haven't seen the leader since the start, I also haven't seen third place (thankfully).  Climb the hills one more time, I know if I push it over the limit here I can catch my breath in the woods.  I meet the relief of the tight single track and tell myself "just ride smooth and finish, you've got this."

Then BAM!  My chin was in the dirt before I even realized what happened.  My hands never left the handlebars to protect my face.  No time for pain just get up and get GOING!

Someone is catching up, I don’t recognize him… "is he in my class?" Who cares just don't let him by!

The finish line… Finally.

Good job, Daddy!

Levis Trow 100

this image was robbed from Levis Mound

When driving up interstate 94 through Wisconsin you will notice that its basically flat land except for the occasional tall sandstone tower.  The Levis Mound Trail goes up and down one of those towers, it makes for some very tough biking conditions.  Long climbs and tricky descents with not much room for error.  The good stuff!

We got there early  Friday afternoon and set up camp, look close in the picture and you'll notice a goofball sending kisses to the camera.  I went and pre-rode the course which was awesome no doubt.  When I got back, Jason (race director) asked me to help setup an aid station.

As we rode out in his lifted jeep to drop off the pop up tent and water coolers we drove over this fallen tree.  Then on the way back we drove over it again.  After driving over it twice we decided to...

Haul it back as firewood for the community fire.

Then Saturday morning the race took off! #3 Lee Unwin took off with the lead and for most of the first lap I followed.

Dad taking off on his brand new spearfish.

Me leading at the end of the first lap

Toward the end of the first lap Lee missed a bridge and let me by but he stayed right on my rear tire the whole time.  I lead most of the second lap but crashed on a tricky climb and he went by.  He was nice about it though and waited for me to get back up, but I couldn't hold his pace any longer.  He left and I rode around the rest of the day in second place.

Then about 60 miles in I decided to quit.  I am still not really sure why, I could have finished if I wanted to, but I didn't feel like riding my bike anymore.  I was trashed, but third was way back so all I had to do was keep riding and get second.  At the pit stop before lap 5 little Evan came over and gave me a fresh water bottle,  I took it and did one more lap, but something about that little guy giving me the bottle made me not want to go out anymore.  So I quit and we packed up, went to dinner and got home early.  I train hard for these events, but for some reason at that moment spending time with family was more important than finishing second place.

Somewhere I read that it takes 3 years to get a "real" endurance built.  So I am hoping that next year I will be much stronger.  I know that I have improved greatly from last year but I am still not where I want to be.  I just gotta keep working.

-David Swanson

Day dreaming...

XXC mag is an online magazine that covers many different types of mountain bike racing and even some gravel races.  They post from the WEMS series and featured two stories on Trans Iowa in the last issue (xxc issue 18)  To order the mag go to....  http://xxcmag.com/

The reason I bring it up though is because they posted this video of the Colorado Trail Race.  I have heard of this race before, but now that I saw this video it is on my To Do list for sure!

http://vimeo.com/71835275

XXC also posted this photo of some bad ass old guys without helmets climbing dirt hills on skinny tires.  Tough Stuff!

Southern WI ride

Friday night I planned a route and printed cue sheets for ride through south western Wisconsin.  I went into work for four hours then took off at 10 am toward Mt. Horeb.   

I wasn't sure what to expect for the day, but after looking at the maps Friday I knew I was in for some good riding.  The good rides ahead were confirmed by all the cars driving by me with bikes on the back.  It seems silly to me that someone would drive a road bike to a road, then ride.  I prefer to just ride my bike there!

I passed a Walgreen's and a gas station in Stoughton, but I had a full bottle so decided not to stop.  That turned out to be a bad idea because by the time I got to Mt. Horeb I was feeling pretty bad.  The weather was perfect and there was only a slight headwind.  I was surprised at how many other cyclists I saw out on the road, it was crazy.

Us flat landers really got ripped off when the glaciers ran through the area.  The hills are what attracted me to ride in this area but once I got there I started to wonder... why?  It was constant rollers, climb up at 10 mph then fly down at 40, then back up.

The hills were taller than the trees.

Drafting combines in Wisconsin.  Seemed a little early for that.

150 miles including a couple lengthy stops took 9 hours 46 minutes.

            So it ended up being a great day on the bike.  I was pretty dehydrated when I got to Mt. Horeb, but got over it and by the time I hit New Glarus at mile 90 I was feeling really good.  90-150 was an easy ride, I need to figure out how to feel like that all the time. The new All City feels great and I can't wait to put some more miles on it.

        One thing I gotta say is that I spent almost 10 hours on Wisconsin roads and not once did I get my arm hairs buzzed off by a car, flipped off, covered in a black cloud of diesel smoke, or have someone pull out in front of me because they "didn't see me."  Nobody laid on the horn or yelled out the window, in fact they were more interested on how my road bike had disc brakes and wanted to talk about how my ride was going.  Wisconsin is a cool place!

-David Swanson

Murphy's Law

            Ever since finishing third in this race last year, my goal has been to win it this year.  My chances were looking dim when I pulled into the parking lot and saw all the racers that were present.  Past WEMS champ Lee Unwin, Mid course champ Matt Millin, Illinois MTB champ and single speed cyclocross champ Mike Naughton, plus a few other faces I didn't recognize.

            I got started off in 4th behind 3 guys that were just flying through the trails, I was pushing my limits but keeping up.  Then about half way through the first lap "Murphys Law" kicked in and my chain came derailed.  It was tangled into a puzzle similar to the ones that old retired guys sit on a chair and spend all day trying to figure out.  I was throwing a hissy fit at the irony in that I would spend so much time preparing for this race but wouldn’t spend $50 for a chain guide.  One of the cool things about the WEMS races is that every person that rode by asked if I was alright, and Matt Millin even stopped and got off his bike to help.  I finally got it untangled after about 10 minutes and was back on course.

            Lap two saw me slowly catching back up to people and passing some.  Then while passing someone my chain came off again.  This time luckily it wasn’t a tangled mess but I had to stop and put it back on.  This happened twice more on the second lap.

                                                                       

            After doing intervals of sprint to catch up, then put chain back on, then sprint to catch up.  I stopped in the pits and opened up the tool box.  I am not sure how much time I spent there, it wasn't much, and I fixed the problem.  For the rest of the race my chain was in place.

            I made it past Lee Unwin, and maintained about a 15 second lead for 5 hours or so until lap nine of ten.  I heard the clank of rim against rock, then the hiss of air pressure being lost.  I was riding past a couple first aid guys on bikes at the time and hoped so badly it was their tires going flat, but it was not to be.  I pulled over and ripped the rear wheel off.  I watched as Lee Unwin passed by then the next guy.  I fixed the tire but I was defeated.  I didn't want to go out and finish the last lap, but Christina insisted.  So I finished but it wasn't pretty.

The tube around my neck and the look on my face pretty much sums it up.

            I am going to chalk this one up as a learning experience.  All the training in the world doesn't mean a thing if you don’t take care of your bike.  I knew that rear tire had a slow leak, but for some reason decided not to change the tube before the race. 

            As I write this its now Tuesday a few days after the race and I feel much better, I have been a regular negative nancy the last few days after my poor finish.  I guess that shows how good I have it really.  If all I can complain about is a bad bike race, then life must be pretty good.

-David Swanson

Tour de Crystal Lake

I heard about this race a couple months ago, and was interested in doing it but decided not to.  It just seemed expensive to pay $50 to race for 30 minutes.  Now that I have seen it in person though I have changed my mind.  I still think its overpriced, but I plan on racing this next year.  The course is .75 miles long and you basically go out and ride balls to the wall and hope you don't get dropped.  Here are some photos and videos...

Womens Cat 1/2 video

Mens Cat 5 video

Wisconsin Endurance Mountain Bike Series Bear Paw 10 hour

We  got up to White Lake, WI a little after lunch time on Friday, and set up camp.  One of the friendly camp workers recommended we walk down and check out the river.

So we did... we didn't realize it was about 2.5 miles away though.  It was a fun hike, but we weren't prepared for 3 hours of hiking and should have brought water and snacks.  Evan loved skipping rocks in the Wolf River.

Christina practiced her camera skills

The kayaks in a tree to remember a tornado that went through the area.

After dinner I went out and pre-rode the course.  It was a really nice trail, lots of rocks and technical sections, separated by wider 4-wheeler sized trails that would make passing easy.

random bike in the woods

The little building in the middle of this picture is the campground.  I took this picture from the highest point on the trail, it took about 15 minutes of climbing to get here.  Then the down hill that follows gets us back to camp within a couple minutes.  My GPS said my top speed was 29.6 mph on this down hill, the trial was wide enough that if you drove a small car up it you would probably scratch both sides of the car.  This was my favorite part of the course.

After the pre-ride, I came back showered and hung out by the fire.  There were a couple fiddle players, a guy with a guitar, and a lady singing.  Good Stuff.

Morning came

Coffee was brewed

Then it was race time.

I got off to a good start, Chris Schotz and I finished the first lap in under 30 minutes, things were going good.  Then something happened around the 2-3 hour point and I am still not sure what my problem was but I bonked hard, Gatorade and water weren't working, I was to sick to eat anything, I couldn't concentrate.  I was really having a hard time, I came into the pits and told Christina I was done, I couldn't ride anymore.  I sat down took some IBprofin and a pepsi.  I watched third place go by, then 4th place, then 5th place, and finally Christina said go try one more lap.  I went back out slowly and the leader caught up to me and lapped me.

Then something clicked I stayed right with Chris, the leader and started to feel way better.  I passed back for 4th, then caught up to 3rd and passed him.  I got back to the pits, grabbed some fresh bottles and saw 2nd taking a break. So I guess I wasn't the only one having a hard time with the heat.  That made me feel even better, in one lap I went from broken and beaten to strong and in second place.  I eventually passed the leader to get back on the lead lap.  

Randy Wagner was not going to let me have second place easily though, I passed him around the 4 hour point he got me back at 5 hours.  6-7 hours in I got him back and finally made it stick, he was never very far behind but I had a small gap between us.

So that's how we ended up, Chris, me, Randy.  It will be a tough points battle for the championship this year.  

As for me I'm looking forward to going to work for some relaxation after this active 4th of July!  Thanks Christina for your constant support and thanks to Wheel Werks Bikes.

-David