Wednesday, September 16, 2009

broken

Treadfest was more then two hours away. But it only took 3 seconds before it was all over for me. Yet another broken chain. http://vimeo.com/6600257
I'm the 3rd from the left in black.... The one who gets swallowed up.

I attempted to post this video in my blog but was unable to due to an error on the page.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

back to the trails

After not being on my mountain bike for nearly a month before WORS # 9 I knew some changes were in order. I got a hold of Jim who was willing to show me some trails just out side of fondy that i had never heard of. I wasn't sure what to expect when we first got there. But it didn't take long for me to decide this would not be the last time I would ride there. It was alittle over grown but i could clearly see how great this place was. Now I don't want to miss lead you half the reason why this place is "great" is because it's only about a 30 min drive which is by far the closest mtb trails for me. And it's not nine mile comparable, it probably has 7 miles? of singletrack all together so there's not a ton but the stuff that's there is pretty good stuff. It's tight, some of it very tight! there's a creek crossing, some technical climbs, a small bridge, rocks, roots, a pine section that's very fast, and some great views of the lake. I have yet to buy a camera but when i do I'll be sure to post some pictures of this hidden treasure.


I saw another opertunity to get back on the trails for the second time in four days which hasn't happend for me since the franklin wors race. I went camping with some friends up north and decided that I'd make a stop on the way home and hit some trails. Those trails turned out to be the nine mile trails and as i was getting ready I saw a familur face riding tords me. It was no other than Justin Lund taking his new turner out for it's first spin. Now I don't ride nine mile that often, in fact I can count on one hand how many times I've been there outside of wors on one hand. So to say i don't know the trails very well would be and understatement. With Justin as my guide we headed out and rode for about an hour and a half before Justin called it quites. As he put in over an hour before i got there. So after he left i headed back out for another hour or so and had a good crash before i called it quites. I was sailing through a twistie singletrack section when i sholdered a tree and almost ended up head first into another tree. After that i called it quites and headed home.


Both days were ridin on my singlespeed. That beast is really growing on me.

wors 9


The weekend of the race in the Green Bay area started of with rain which canceled the pre ride, damn! Race day came with two days of rested legs due to not pre riding. I wasn't sure how to feel about that but the race started and i felt pretty good. I was heading into the first section of singletrack in about 4th place in my wave with my teammate Jesse leading the charge on his home course. By the time we got out of the first singletrack section my lungs were burning from either the dust or the speed of the leadout. At which point I probably should have started pacing myself, instead I just kept the pedal on the gas. Somewhere during the first lap a nice fellow came up from behind me and we started chatting, this young mans goes by the name of Ben or BW if you will. He asked how far ahead Jesse was, i replied i wasn't sure. At this point we were slidding through the singletrack pretty good and BW said "don't worry, if we keep this up we'll catch Jesse" About a lap later i was cooked as i watched BW set out after Jesse by himself all I could do was watch. My legs were burning something ferce and I just couldn't keep the pace any longer. I couldn't help but wonder what had gone wrong? was it air pressure in my fork? air pressure in the tires? my fittness? my lack of taking a draft? a mix of all these things?
I suffered through the rest of the race and finnished 36th or something to that effect. Although i didn't finnish very well I was proud of myself that I didn't let up. I left what i had on the course and had a blast in doing so. It may not have been a victory but I'll take a "bad day" like that over a good day on the road any day.