I woke up on race day!
The Abyss otherwise known as spring in Wisconsin has taken its toll on the author, racer, dad, trainer, or whatever my codename is for the week, but over the last month I've received a little help from a pretty well known racer here along the 44th parallel and the help was muchly appreciated and certainly needed so thank you Scott!! My rides have become more thought out and with a purpose, but most importantly fun. I am going into the first WEMS Race of the year optimistic that I will ride consistently, but the racer in me has a lot voices in the back of my mind not allowing me to forget the events of last fall that will be hard to ignore once I get to the start line. Some thoughts are good, those are the ones you want to keep to ensure a good positive attitude others need some correcting and there is only one way to correct those thoughts and that's by bringing the Metal!
Now to the boring bike geek stuff....I am carefully plotting my Maxxis tire selection. Since Ben and Amy Welnak were in town I knew it was going to rain, now the question is how much? The course is pretty sandy and fights away water pretty well....to a point and in certain areas not so much. The Ikons are more agressive in tread pattern than the Aspens, but the Cross Marks are right up there. Another option would be a cross between the Ikon on the back and the Ignitor on the front.....choices....choices, but I stuck with the Ikons and was I suprised how well they handled the wet conditions Also, the Salsa has seen some changes from my friends at the Hayes Group. Answer Carbon riser bar and Manitou's new Tower Pro 29er fork will help lighten the bike up some while giving me a little more support in the cockpit. Nutrition is arriving by the box full. I will be chewing up on some Honey Stinger Fruit Smoothie Gummies and Gels when needed along with my 100 miler mix I created with the help of Infinit Nutrition.
Friday afternoon bike shakedown took place, followed by a lovely dinner and entertainment provided by BikeHub/Specialized's very own JShoe!!!! Saturday it was game on at the WEMS Opener StumpFarm 100.
I started off faster than I normally would to see what I had, but I knew right away that my legs felt really heavy so I basically let Schotz go and tried taking it easy for the rest of the first lap, which turned into 7 more just like it. I couldn't get anything going until about half way through lap 9 I started feeling a little lighter on my feet so I gave it a shot and kinda glad I did as I closed a pretty large gap between rich lytle and myself, but made a really bad choice in lines towards the end that slowed me down enough to close the door. It did feel good to go that hard though....I just don't think my body was ready for that effort for every lap yet this season. It's always fun to go in to a race every so often with no expectations but to ride consistent laps and have fun (which can be tough when it's cold and rainy like it was). Plus the sooner I got done the sooner I got my mint oreo blizzard.
A special thanks to Nacho at Sprocketz for tubes and the tire tool, thank god I didn't need either, but Sprocketz has my back if I did.
The Abyss otherwise known as spring in Wisconsin has taken its toll on the author, racer, dad, trainer, or whatever my codename is for the week, but over the last month I've received a little help from a pretty well known racer here along the 44th parallel and the help was muchly appreciated and certainly needed so thank you Scott!! My rides have become more thought out and with a purpose, but most importantly fun. I am going into the first WEMS Race of the year optimistic that I will ride consistently, but the racer in me has a lot voices in the back of my mind not allowing me to forget the events of last fall that will be hard to ignore once I get to the start line. Some thoughts are good, those are the ones you want to keep to ensure a good positive attitude others need some correcting and there is only one way to correct those thoughts and that's by bringing the Metal!
Now to the boring bike geek stuff....I am carefully plotting my Maxxis tire selection. Since Ben and Amy Welnak were in town I knew it was going to rain, now the question is how much? The course is pretty sandy and fights away water pretty well....to a point and in certain areas not so much. The Ikons are more agressive in tread pattern than the Aspens, but the Cross Marks are right up there. Another option would be a cross between the Ikon on the back and the Ignitor on the front.....choices....choices, but I stuck with the Ikons and was I suprised how well they handled the wet conditions Also, the Salsa has seen some changes from my friends at the Hayes Group. Answer Carbon riser bar and Manitou's new Tower Pro 29er fork will help lighten the bike up some while giving me a little more support in the cockpit. Nutrition is arriving by the box full. I will be chewing up on some Honey Stinger Fruit Smoothie Gummies and Gels when needed along with my 100 miler mix I created with the help of Infinit Nutrition.
Friday afternoon bike shakedown took place, followed by a lovely dinner and entertainment provided by BikeHub/Specialized's very own JShoe!!!! Saturday it was game on at the WEMS Opener StumpFarm 100.
I started off faster than I normally would to see what I had, but I knew right away that my legs felt really heavy so I basically let Schotz go and tried taking it easy for the rest of the first lap, which turned into 7 more just like it. I couldn't get anything going until about half way through lap 9 I started feeling a little lighter on my feet so I gave it a shot and kinda glad I did as I closed a pretty large gap between rich lytle and myself, but made a really bad choice in lines towards the end that slowed me down enough to close the door. It did feel good to go that hard though....I just don't think my body was ready for that effort for every lap yet this season. It's always fun to go in to a race every so often with no expectations but to ride consistent laps and have fun (which can be tough when it's cold and rainy like it was). Plus the sooner I got done the sooner I got my mint oreo blizzard.
A special thanks to Nacho at Sprocketz for tubes and the tire tool, thank god I didn't need either, but Sprocketz has my back if I did.
