14 of 15 Ain't Bad

So in what has become a tireless search for new places to ride my mountain bike, a few weeks ago I stumbled across a website advertising a race series that takes place in 12 different cities within the great state of Wisconsin. Initially, I thought this was a great find. I mean, if they race bikes on these trails, surely they must be worthy of riding at other times during the year. Plus, it was advertised as the "Nation's Largest State Wide Racing Series". Kind of hard to argue with that.

As it turns out, the reason why Wisconsin (of all places) has such an extensive schedule of races is that there are so few trails and places to ride, the only time some areas allow mountain biking is under the guise of an official event like a race. So, in other words, if you want to take advantage of these unique locales, you'd better pony up 26 bucks and line up with the rest of the field on race day.

Fair enough.

Now lets talk a little about the format of these races. Keep in mind, I'm pretty much a novice to this stuff...sure I like to ride, but with the exeption of one or two ill fated efforts at racing in Pennsylvania and California, my victories have been limited to beating Jeff Stanners up the back side of Crafton Hills, as long as he didn't get a head start.

Lucky for me, there were three levels of competition to choose from - citizen, sport, and comp. The races are 10, 15, and 20 miles, repectively, of which I chose the middle. Ordinarily I would have gone with the shortest of the three, I am very much a novice afer all, but now that I live with someone highly competitive in the world of endurance sports, it was quickly brought to my attention that we don't do things that like around here. Awesome...a 15 mile "race" it is.

On race day, we arrive early enough to get in a good warm up and spend a little time learning the course. My initial observation was that there weren't any trails at all, just a path created by cutting the grass very short. The second thing I noticed was how everyone but me "looked" the part. For those of you not in the mountain biking/cycling know, riders adhere to a very specific style best described with one word - matching. The shirt matches the shorts that match the socks that have the same color as the helmet that was inspired by colors on the frame which mesh with a design on the fork which, as it just so happens, also matches the shirt. And so it goes. All brightly colored, form fitting technical fabrics that probably cost in upwards of $8 per sock. Compare this with me and my 10 year old cotton t-shirt that says "schuck me, suck me, eat me raw" (its an oyster bar reference, sheesh), black shorts with holes in the ass and broken helmet and you could say I stood out.

Anyway, after a thorough warm up and pre-race final instructions, the gun goes off, and so do all the riders but me. For crying out loud, this was a 15 mile race and everyone took off like they were sprinting to a port-a-potty across the field. Less than 1 mile into the race and I'm fearing the worst - a "DFL" finish (dead f'ing last, for those not in the endurance sport world).

Lucky for me, some of the riders did slow down, and I was actually able to catch a few of them. I was cruising up the hills and hitting the decents hard for the next 14 miles. 14 great miles of racing with one problem. It was a 15 mile race.

Now I can't say exactly where or when, but somewhere about that 14 mile mark I ran out of gas. And when I say ran out of gas, I mean I completely ran out of gas. I went from tired but still hammering over smaller hills and making aggressive moves around the other riders to just hoping the colored spots I was beginning to see didn't get so big that my vision was completely blocked. Suddenly, it was everything I could do just to turn the pedals. Lucky for me, the last part was relatively flat, and I was able to finish the race on the bike. Unfortunately, most of the other riders weren't feeling so queezy, and what must have been a least 20 bikes passed me like I was standing still.

But really, I'm not trying to make excuses, althought it seems that I need to find one seeing as how I just got smoked on a hilly course (by Wisconsin standards) by a bunch of guys who don't even really know what a hill is. Or maybe next time I can just find a race that's only 14 miles long.