One night Jason, Teal, and I got talked into doing a WEMS mountain bike race, I was drunk and apparently crazy. I don't have a mountain bike nor have I rode one in many many years. Teal backed out on us, and luckily my roommate Arron stepped it up to join our very green team.
The WEMS race was a 12 hour event at New Fane (Northern Kettle Moraine). The laps were approximately 4.5 miles long and the plan was to each ride a lap and switch. Our order wasn't based on any sort of strategy, my only request was that I would go approximately the same time as Andy T. (friendly competition). Jason was borrowing Cales 1x1 29'er, Arron was borrowing Katy's Motobecane 29'er, and I was riding my On-One (little steel cyclocross bike (not the tool for the job) ).
Jason started the morning off for us, since no-one had seen the course we had no idea what to expect. We were told that laps should take about 30 minutes and that there were some logs that had to be jumped at some point. Arron and I were anxiously waiting for Jason to come back, first we saw some guys come in at a blistering pace in about 20 minutes. Then around 22 minutes we looked out on the hill and saw a little kid coming down the hill. Wait thats not a little kid it was Jason, he was hauling it and came flying in. He "high-fived" in arron and arron was off second for our team. It was then time for me to double check all my things and make sure everything was in working order. Everything checked out fine. My main concerns for my bike was my gear ratio, I decided to run a 39:19 gear ratio that day. I didn't know really what to expect
what-so-ever.
I had been watching the time and wasn't sure how fast Arron was going to come back, I went over to the "tag-in" area at the 20 minute mark. Arron came roaring in about 24 minutes on his first lap. It was then my turn, the start was on an uphill area, in true cyclocross style I did a running mount and was off.
The first half of the course was rolling hills through deep rocky trails. I was surprisingly handling it well and with quite a bit of speed. I quickly caught up to a number of riders and passed them up. On the first lap I had to run a number of hills due to my larger gearing and not being able to expect them (future laps I was able to ride them all). I also decided to dismount over the largest log pile to play it safe, but I jumped the other ones. The biggest surprise (and most fun) section of the course was when I got about 2 feet of air coming down this steep hill and launched off the following burm. Luckily I kept it rubber side down. I finished the rest of the course fairly quickly in about 22 minutes as well.
Our little team was doing alright so far, we were all scared that we had to do this for 12 hours and would burn out. We kept up the same rotation for the morning and I had only fallen once at that point (front tire slid in some loose dirt and I got real dusty). Much to everyone's surprise we were sitting in 2nd place fairly well, thats when tragedy struck. My fear of riding little cyclocross tires on a mountain bike course came true. I double flatted about 1 mile into the lap. I dismounted and threw my bike on my shoulder and started running (this was going to be long). While in a normal 5K run I can usually do about 20 minutes, this time I had a 20 lb bike, a loose rock mountain bike trail, and I was wearing bike shoes. It wasn't looking good. I ran for about a mile and then I needed to walk, I was completely wiped. I decided to take desparate measures, Jason had given me a piece of cloth that said "party party party" on it, I decided to use rip up that cloth and tie my tires to my rims as best as I could. This way I could at least roll the soft flat sections and give my running a break, this work surprisingly well. I would roll really slowly and would cringe everytime I would hear a ding (poor rims). I then got to the really hilly and rocky section and had to run the rest of the way, luckily Arron got word of my situation and met me right before the grassy area and gave me another bike to ride. When I saw him, I was deliriously tired and confused.
I then switched out both tires, but at that point Andy T. let me take his bike on my next round. It was a fully geared Specialized mountain bike. Almost the complete opposite of what I was riding previously. It rolled so smoothly and the gearing was a life saver because I was so drained at that point. I rode most of the rest of day on his bike and thank him for it. Gunnar also let me borrow his bike for a round as well, slighlty different, it was 1x9 set-up with a front suspension. The front suspension was the weirdest part to get used to. The rest of the day was fairly unventful, I would go out ride 2 laps and be so tired that my legs would lock completly solid and I couldn't move them. There were a few times that I had to slow down while riding and physically punch my legs until they loosened up. Overall we finished in 5th place (mainly due to my double flat and run-athon). But everyone had a ton of fun and want to try it again, but under better conditions.
I learned a lot about myself as a rider. I learned that I wasn't that bad at mountain biking, that mountain biking is a lot of fun, that cyclocross bikes aren't for a mountain bike race, and mainly how about hard I can actually push myself and keep going even when my body has started powering off.
Yes that is all dirt on my face.