I won.

Me stalking in the background

Now that i have your attention, I will say that there were not that many people in the race. It was a 3 hour endurance race in the "northwoods" of wisconsin. Jane and I were at a friends cabin with several couples (which was awesome), and this race on the WEMS series was only 45 minutes from the cabin. It was the Wasburn Rock and Root, just outside of Rhinelander, WI. Myself and co-conspirator Jack Zabrowski lined up for the 3 hour tour. I hadn't really ridden since the previous race as my bruised/broken ribs have been giving me a bunch of trouble. I wasn't actually sure that I would line up for this one, but after some pre-medding with tylenol, it was doable. I told myself that if I was in pain I was going to shut it down, but at the start I knew I had a chance to win so it was on and I was ready.

My main competition was going to be Jack and some Australian named Owen. I am well aware that you can never trust an Australian as Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, so I made sure to keep a close eye on him. Add in the fact that he is a Cat 1 road racer and lived and raced in Belgium, and his legs were huge......it was going to be a good race. He was however, riding an 26" aluminum hardtail. I knew in a 3 hour race I had the mechanical advantage riding the epic 29, especially because we soon found out the trails were bumpy as shit.

It all started with a 2 mile double track leadout before we came through the start/finish and into the single track. Thank god it wasn't a LeMans start as I still can't run on my leg since I broke it last February. Owen takes off at the gun and I manage to hold his wheel the entire time. We opened up a huge gap right away and my friend Jack later told me that there was no way he was going to go that fast that quick. We empty into the singletrack which was all pretty technical. 100% singletrack the rest of the lap until you come through the double track at the end of the lap (that we started with). Right away I could tell Owen's tech skills were lacking but he had more horsepower for sure. I sat behind the first half of the lap and eventually told him I would lead. As soon as I took over I tried to gap him but it only ever got up to about 10 seconds. We came through the double track at the end of the first lap with him basically on my wheel and he put the hammer down. He immediately opened up 30 second gap. I tried to chase a bit but had to slow it down.

Second lap it started raining a bunch and the trail was getting muddy and slick very fast. I was riding very bad at this time and was suffering. I began thinking that I was just going to have to hold on to 2nd place. However, the last part of the 2nd lap I started picking my head up and looking down the trail like you're supposed to and immediately I start riding fast again. I came through for the 3rd lap and they said Owen was only 55 seconds ahead. It was great, I started riding really fast and was just so focused. I came up on the Aussie within 5 minutes and I knew I had a good chance at getting a good gap. I was getting really anxious to move around and almost crashed. He opened 10 seconds right away but I stayed calm and just rode up to him. I must have been putting on the pressure for him to ride fast because he started making a bunch of mistakes. I think I was being too polite again. How do you handle these situations? If the leader is fumbling around and I'm soft pedaling sticking his wheel, do I ask him to move over or do you just tell him you're going to pass and then try to take it from him? Eventually he bobbled enough and let me go through when he dabbed. With 1/2 to 1/3 lap to go I was out of sight. I was just worried that he would catch me on the double track, but I soon realized he was gone and I had won. I ended up finishing 3 minutes up on him and about 20 minutes over the next closest. Granted it was a smaller race, and not that many people, but I was pretty happy with how things unfolded.

That night at the cabin I ate a shit ton of tacos and it was good. My ribs are in some trouble though. During the race it felt fine, but the second I got off the bike, I could barely move. Still today it's pretty bad. I may sit out next weekends WORS race - we'll see.