Congrats, Blackhawks!!!

Congrats to the Blackhawks on winning the Stanley Cup!

The final game was a mix of stressful and awesome all stirred together.

I admit I don't follow major team sports too closely, so you can call me a fair weather fan - but I'm enjoying the great "weather" the Hawks have brought us! I'm so happy for all of you who have been following them forever - your loyalty and patience has finally been rewarded. Enjoy every minute of it! They deserve it, you deserve it and Chicago deserves it.

Sprint Finish at the Big Ring Ring Classic (aka the Anatomy of a Sprint?)

In the men's Pro/Cat 1 race of WORS #3, the Trek Big Ring Classic at 9 MIle Forest in Wausau, this herd of race leaders came through together lap after lap. It was a sweltering day and there was no mercy.





When it came to the end, they had still managed to stay together, which meant the long straightaway before the finish was going to become a dragstrip for the top men battling for the win.














#1 is Brian Matter (Gear Grinder), #4 is Darrin Braun (Adventure 212/Specialized), and #144 is Mark LaLonde (Gary Fisher 29er).

I just missed getting a pic of first place Abby Strigel (Trek Stores of Madison) as she crossed the finish line as the first Pro/Cat 1 woman. You can see her atop the podium below. More pics here once I have a chance to get a little sleep!

Pro/Cat 1 Women's podium.

Pro/Cat 1 Men's podium. Shots of the entire podium are online.

First Kettle Ride of the year

I missed a whole year of race reports, it seems. Uploading photos into the wee hours on Sunday nights after races had me too tired to write posts, and the week always got too busy to get around to it. It's really a shame, because I raced pretty much every weekend last year from April up to around November, between WORS, WEMS , Chequamegon, Iceman, and everything else. I had so much to say, but not the energy to hone and polish a perfect blog post after every race! I'm going to try to post a little more often this year.

I went on a fun group ride at Kettle Saturday before heading up to the Rhinelander WORS. It was my first ride there of the year! Kudos to all the hard-working trail builders who have been working on new features such as the berms. We had some people that had never been there before - it was fun seeing it through a newcomer's eyes and hearing what they had to say about it! The guys went at warp speed for the whole thing including Emma, and five of us opted for a shorter, more leisurely ride, keeping in mind we had a pregnant rider, some that were racing WORS the next day (including me), and two boys! It still wasn't easy for me though, showing me how out of shape I am this year.

It was really nice to chill out around the picnic table before everyone headed off either north to the race or back home to evening plans. It feels great to get some "green therapy" after a long, gray winter!
Rhinelander WORS race report this week, I hope.

Impersonating a mountain bike racer?

Here's an article about what can happen when you use someone else's race entry in a hard-to-get into event. These women faced impersonation charges for using someone else's entry and accepting prizes in the LT100 (Leadville). Reading it, I can't help but think of all the people that have used someone else's entry in popular regional races.

Best Race Flier Ever?

This might be the best race flier/invitation I have ever seen!

Watch this video for the HAC/NCC Gravel Metric. It's the same day as the Wausau WORS, so you have some interesting options for the day.

Twizzlers? Bacon? Fat Tire Ale? Dollars?

Twizzler handups, bacon handups, beer handups, dollar handups, what more could you want in a race video? Check out this highly entertaining video of the sand pit in Saturday's cyclocross race. This was the men's Cat 4B's,( the newbies), plus quite a few women who wanted to take part in the most fun race of the day.

Second Airing of Race Across the Sky

November 12 is the date for the second showing of Race Across the Sky. Locations to be announced.

This is great news for those of who showed up to see the movie but got sent home due to technical problems with the live feed at the theater!

It was so frustrating to buy tix way in advance and look forward to it, then sit for 20 minutes in the theater while they tried to fix the problems. If they had figured it out right before the movie, they could have told us at the door, which would have given us a chance to go to another theater during the panel discussion and possibly catch most of the movie.

Sheboygan WORS Pics

I was thinking about my bumping a tree on my second lap, falling left towards the river bank, hearing the volunteer gasp something like "oh, no", from above, and subsequently almost falling in.... and how I had so many layers on (start temp: 31 ish degrees...) I might have sunk, never to be seen again... but that didn't happen, luckily, and I spent the rest of the day taking photos at the race. It sounds like several of the rest of you went for a swim.... brrrrr!

There are two sets of photos posted from WORS #12, the Wigwam Challenge in Sheboygan yesterday, October 11.

Set 1 includes Equalizer photos from the third and fourth lap of the Elite/Comp race, podiums from the sport and citizen race, and the elite/comp starts. The awards pics didn't aren't so great due to the backlighting from the sun.

Set 2 includes the Elite (Cat 1) and Comp awards and the Raffle at the end of the day. And an awesome sequence of the WORS start line tower being tipped over and dismantled. I had never watched this before and found it kind if spellbinding in a weird sort of way.