WORS Treadfest

This weekend was my first experience at a WORS race in WI. The event was held at a ski resort on lake Geneva. The course was a 5 mile loop that is depicted. This race was a painfest! The start was wide open and stayed that way as it went up a shorter hill, and pinched off into a dusty single track, no brake, white knuckle decent. This took you to a gravel road which lead to a second small climb, and another balls out decent and then to the longer climb. This was the meat of the climbing on the course. Nothing too sustained, and alot of it was on short cut grass and gravel. There was a loose switch back at the top that blew most everyones mind. Thats always fun when the adrenalin is pumping, and the competition is fierce. Once the top is reached, there was a bombing decent into the woods. This is where I got my first glimpse of WI single track. Tight, Twisty, varying conditions, varying terrain. Nothing crazy, just pure hard pack that you can pump hard while you are laying down some power on the pedals. The body English was being spread pretty thick, but the traffic was still thick at this point. The rock garden was alot of fun to go through. Mostly dry baby heads, with a good line through the middle, and some ancillary technical moves after that before you dumped out into a short double track section. The rest of the course took on this pattern, a section of single track, tight and technically demanding at speed, then a short double track seciton, which was suited well for blowing the doors off of the guy in front of you. there were probably 5 or 6 of the cycles. toward the end of the course, there was a short, loose, steep, off chamber climb that also melted alot of faces. right after this there were a set of switchbacks that slowed you down, but were not difficult. most people again crumbled under the pressure of having a rider behind them. I was able to get two completely clean laps in, with out even a foot dab, but the other two laps were not as clean. I almost mowed down a few spectators in the Rock Garden when this dude biffed it in front of me. Instead of moving out of the way, he is trying to get up and get on his bike/run in the rock garden! I swung around him and aggressively told him that I was passing, and I will get in front of him. There was a 2 second pause in my momentum that really pleased the massive crowd when I stuck it and passed this guy. The rest of the race had me going back and forth with several guys that were strong, but not technically sound. They would power by me and then make a mistake, giving me a chance to get around. I totally fried myself on the start and the first lap. I was about 8-10th into the woods, and moved up pretty well, but at the beginning of the second lap, I had to sit up and recover some. The second to last lap was beginning to fill up with negative thoughts, about pain, about weakness, about quitting, about self pity. I knew that I could hang in there. On the last lap, I rode hard. I was conservative in the few spots with downed logs, and roots, but the rest of the lap I hammered. I was spend when I crossed the line. I ended up 40th overall, and 7th in my age group. The age group timing had me as 35th, but when you look at the times, I was 40th. I consider this a pretty modest finish in this competitive series. our start was all of the under 29 groups. this was about 36 people. All in, this event was awesome!! Well planned and well executed. The trails reminded me of Binder lake in Jeff City, with the added climbing at the beginning. I am happy to have been exposed to this type of single track.