Race Report: WORS The Reforestation Ramble

At the last minute urging from a few more or less local, would be troublemakers gone mountain bikers. I showed up to WORS numero 5 Suamico Reforestation Ramble. "It's a good pre-Chequamegon ride", they said.

So, I threw the results of my daughter's pre-op tests to get her out of surgery at the last minute on Friday (read "threw" as "answered truthfully"). We had to wait out the effects of the pre-op "I care about nothing" juice. Awful fun to watch on a 5 year old. Once we got out of there, I was cleared for Sunday racin'.

I watched the weather all day Saturday with a nervous eye. I had a hunch I was going to get to drive up north just to get to watch a thunderstorm. As fate would have it, I wasn't going to get off so easy.

It was odd shoving off at 8am for a race 2 hours away. I felt like I slept in. An odd feeling for race days. To boot, I had yet to sign up. I didn't spend a week prepping for it. I didn't even spend a week knowing about it. I love that about WORS races.

I arrived a short bit after 10:00 AM and headed for registration. I got the gory details out of the way quick. Before I knew it, I was all stamped and ready for my first Sport SS race.

For the technical details on my bike. I used 2x1 gear ratio and some continental 1.95 width tires. I've got a Surley singulator on a spacer style converted Giant ATX 780 from 10+ years ago with a mag21 on the front. A.K.A. "what I own".

On to the race. I lined up about where I thought I should (read "at the back of sport men"). Early on I passed a few riders at the back. Then we headed into the singletrack section. This is where my experience (one trail ride this year) started to show. I had a blast and just tried to relax and flow with it, but I need more practice. At some point fairly early on, an invisible tree stump grabbed my right pedal and sent me down. My front broke loose at the headset a bit. I tightened it up and carried on. Unfortunately, I didn't get quite as battle scar muddy as I had hoped. Better luck next time.

I hit a few dark spots in the middle. "Why am I here?" But I was listening to the Conrad Stolz interview from SimplyStu on my way up. He talked about keeping your mental picture good and just enough rubbed off. I got in a slow groove and my spirits rose shortly.

On the second lap the elite and comp folks started coming by. Man, they are beyond fast. All were incredibly courteous. I was admittedly a bit nervous about being in they way. In short order, I was pretty good at getting out of the way and getting back going.

Well, long story short, I made it around twice. Nothing speedy, but I got to the line. I had fun and didn't break anything important. I'm slightly more confident that after the RickW prescribed North Ave. hills "until you cramp, then 4 more repeats" I should be ready for this Fat tire 40 thing.

Recovery was good. I felt great the rest of the day and today too. I had a good swim this morning, and a much better run tonight. My knee has stopped bugging me. WORS must be just what I needed! Magic elixir!

Speaking of magic elixir, I hit up the mobile Muddy Cup Cafe post race for some coffee.. After yukking it up with the regulars, the caffeine got me home.

Thanks to TmonT and crew, RickW, Liz, R. Tool man, Bubba, Coop, and those others that were all cool to me but I didn't list here. Special thanks to Gretchen for not running over me when I crashed.

See you out there.