finale.

it never fails. get to the end of mtb season and start racing cross. it's only an hour, how bad can it hurt? your halfway through the first race and you remember. the pain doesn't translate. it's a different pain. so racing cross for a month prior to iceman should make it feel easy. wrong again. jesse and i headed up thursday. got in late and got a room. next day, up to preride. at the start we met up with travis and checked out jhk's bike. proto carbon tubulars w/ dugast 45's. i need some of them. rode the first 5 or 6 miles of the course out and back. drove to the finish and rode the last six miles. the course was fast and we knew times would be blazing. then off to our suite at the grand traverse. race day we were up semi early for some bob evans. all i could manage was two pieces of toast. i considered it a victory. raceday was pretty pleasant. mid forties and not much wind. got a little screwed on the startline sitting 4th row. got off clean as simonster, matter, and jkh were hammering the line. a few miles in i was at the tail end of the ten person paceline. i started dropping off a little as ned hammered past me. i felt spent already, less than five miles in. we hit smith lake road as cole, lummis, and i struggled to bridge up. we never did. we rode together for a few miles before lummis and i dropped cole. we still had the leaders in sight but they slowly disappeared. we kept the pace steady and picked up ross a bit before  williamsburg. we heard the time gap of 2 minutes. that was a bit discouraging. lummis was pullin in the big dog on the straights as i did my best to hold his wheel. soon enough we picked up mike anderson. i went to the front for a while as they shadowed me. at anita's hill lummis let me by to carry the momentum. i ran the top quarter and saw a gap. that was all the motivation i needed to hammer it to the finish. i managed the hilly last five miles without cramping and rolled in seventh. a disappointing gap behind matter, but still a decent placing. props to brian for throwing it down and taking the win. and jesse for fifth rolling the 38x16. my gear choice of 33x14 was about perfect. smaller and i'd have stood no chance, bigger and id have been running more. thanks to gary fisher for the bike, bonty for the bits to get it rolling, twin six for keeping my feet warm, oakley for the vision, lummis for pullin me around the flats, jesse for the motivation, and meghan for the vibes. now i guess i can focus on the pain an hour at a time. should be easy now, right?

Comments

[Tim]

Pain is a serious gateway drug to Fun. Great job dude.

[djonnymac]

nice work Marko!
we kept the light on in the pain cave for ya.

[Bells Brewery/ Quiring Cycles]

Marko it was great ride with such a great person ! You kids will be killing it for along time !

The invite to come to Michigan and ride any epic trails is always open to any of you WISCO hammers ! Just say when and the doors will be opened.

--Lummis

There is nothing more fun than great hammer session with friends on any piece of dirt.