48 mile sandbox

Perhaps more like 40 miles of sand, much of it quite deep, and 8 miles of spinning like mad on the road. Ore to Shore was a tough race. The most memorable moment was near a powerline section of the course called Misery Hill. These were tough, rocky, and steep climbs. Riders were going down all around with flats and cramps in a huge cloud of dust. This was black dust too, like after the race I looked like I had been trapped in a coal mine for a week (meaning no disrespect to current events) On top of a big hill somewhere near the misery march there was a man with a bugle belting out the "charge!" call. This only added to the feeling that we were trying to race across the beaches of Normandy while being shelled.

I felt terrible for the first 20 miles of the race and lost a whole lot of time. Apparently I need a good warm-up even for these longer races. After I started feeling the power coming on I was killing it. While it was too late in the race to salvage a SS top three, I did overtake probably 75-100 riders in the last half of the race. Many of them like they were standing still. In the end I finished squarely in the middle of the singlespeeders and in the upper third of the main field at 160th. For next year I vow to take a half hour off of this year's 3:27 finish and bring a notebook for name taking. The 36x17 was a good pick for me since I didn't have to run anything that all the gearies weren't running anyway. I was also able to power up the ridable climbs at a good clip thanks to the right gear for me and some new bar ends. Climbing with the bar ends is the way to go, makes me feel like a monster.

As far as the other WORS regulars go, Ben Griggs was on came in at around 3:14 even though he had to repair a flat. Russell made a pretty good time also getting into the top 100 and went home with a ghetto cruising raffle bike. Unfortunately Rick had chainring bolt issues and had to drop out. This race is pretty hardcore and intimidating, I just wish it weren't at the north pole.