WORS #11 Bear Paw - Tyler's Race Report

This past week was the closest WORS venue of the year with a short 2 hour 45 min drive.  It was an awesome weekend of weather and the trees changing made for a scenic ride both to WI and back to the UP.  I made the trip with Tyler J., Team Gear Grinder.  We headed down Saturday afternoon and pre rode the course.  My first thought, this course is could favor me and my ride style.  50% or so two track, hard climbs, and what seemed to always be an elevation gain.  My second thought, this course is bumpy, rooty, rocky, and for the little single track it had it took some smooth handling of the bike which I am still working on perfecting.  

Overall I did not enjoy the course that much.  You were either on fairly rough two track or in single track that was loaded with boulders and roots.  That said I handled it well and made it into a good day.  My goal was to get over the first big hill with the leaders and I was able to do that.  I hung on to the front group through the first single track and my time limit was up.  I hung as long as I could with still being smart about the rest of the race.  I settled back a bit and rode with Scott Cole, Adventure 212, and chased his teammate, Ryan Krayer for the whole first lap.  After no success I continued to stay steady but was eventually caught by Stawicki and Ted Henes.  Stawicki was really riding well and put me under some stress and not far after Ted took over and continued the single track tear.  The guys slowly but surely rode away from me in the single track on the 3rd lap as I knew I could not keep that pace and finish with a good 4th lap.  I rode the whole 4th lap chasing and keeping the pace high to keep people from catching.  I did not catch the guys but I did keep my gap from the guys chasing.  I had a strong 4th lap after struggling on the 3rd and I finished with my best WORS finish of the year, 8th overall.   

     

WORS #10 Treadfast - Tyler's Race Report

It was back on the mountain bike scene this past weekend and it sure felt good.  After 3 weeks off from MTB racing and adding in 1 road race I was ready to get dirty.  The race was in Lake Geneva, WI, about a 5 1/2 hour drive South.  I traveled with Tyler Jenema, from Team Gear Grinder, and we left early Saturday morning giving us plenty of time to pre ride and relax for the evening.

A big change for this weekend was I did not have my parents and wife as a support crew.  I have been very lucky and blessed that they have been able to travel with me to just about every race offering the best race support a racer can ask for.  The challenge, not having them and staying hydrated for over a 2 hour race with no hand offs.  The solution, $50, a helping hand, a trip to Lowes, and 1 hour's time.  With that we were able to make an absolute gem of a bottle dispenser.

We set it up at the top of the ski hill at the end of all the support crews.  It worked perfect!

The race was fun, hard, and hilly.  It was at a small ski hill and they brought you to the top of it 4 times throughout the race.  It had a huge amount of single track and only a few hundred yards of two track between.  The longest portion of two track was the first mile of the course when they have you climb the ski hill 3 times.  After this your opportunity to pass was very limited.  The good thing or bad, I guess it's how you look at it, is I didn't have to pass many people.  The only passing I had to do is on the final lap when we started reaching the back end of the womens and comp races.  Other than that I had an awesome start, putting me as high as 9th at one time, and did not have to pass my competitors.  

The race started up hill and I knew I had to get to the top with the field.  I was feeling good mid hill and decided to just keep on going.  This put me in great position for the remainder of the roll out and the first single track.  I entered the single track 9th and tried to establish myself with the group.  With my single track skills lacking their level of riding I quickly faded.  After the first section Brian Matter came around me and I wanted to see how long I could stick.  Ummmm, maybe 5 seconds.  He is so smooth on that Trek.  The next open section Ryan Krayer came around and took the lead.  We could see a group of 3 riders just ahead including Brian Eppen and I figured Ryan could ride us up to them if I just followed his lead.  I took the gamble and did whatever it took to stay with him.  I managed to keep pace through 2 laps and finally had to make the decision to fall back.  I was riding a bit outside my limit and we were not catching the group ahead.  The increased pace in the first 2 laps put my 3rd lap as a recovery lap.  This allowed one rider, Ted Hanes, to close in on me.  Coming over the climb for the final time I still had a minute or more on him and figured I could hold him off but I felt my energy depleting so I did all I could to stay steady.  Half way through the 4th lap he came around me and I could not muster enough to hold on.  The final 10-15 minutes of the race I dug deep and picked up my pace to hold my 12th place position.  I crossed the line pretty gassed and very pleased with my finish. 

I rode outside my limit for a considerable amount of time and felt good doing it.  It didn't cost me as much as I figured it would and this I'm pleased with.  With every race I'm learning more about racing with the front guys and how my body will respond.  I learned a lot and finished 12th overall in a stacked field of 7 professionals including a 2 time Olympian.  Damn! these WORS races are stacked.

I would like to thank my support crew, PVC pipe bottle dispenser!         

Copper Harbor Fat Tire

Culvers Racing gains another podium.  The crew set out for the 2 day festival at the Copper Harbor Fat Tire this past weekend.  With plenty of activity planned and a new course it lived up to its usual hype.  The course was redesigned this year for a 1 lap 27 mile race changed from it's past version of a 2 lap 24 mile race.  The first half was routed through the usual bumpy and technical single track but the riders were treated to a completely new section of single track for the remainder of the race.  On the starting line for the team was Tom Carpenter, Glen Lerlie, Danny Hill, and Justin Weber.

The race took it's usual hot start up the pavement hill to the first dirt section.  With the lead rider up the road a bit Tom and Aaron Swanson took on the chase.  They worked on the catch for the first half until Tom went off on his own.  He rode the rest of the race by himself.  He had a few mishaps on the way filling his rear tire several times with air.  It cost him a couple minutes on the leader but it held out for him and he finished behind Chris Peariso for a 2nd overall.  Tom was the first amateur to cross the line.

The rest of the team filed in with very respectable positions.  Justin Weber, 13th.  Glen Lerlie, 22nd. Danny Hill, 43rd.      

Cherry Roubaix

What seemed to be an open weekend back in May when I planned the Cherry Roubaix ended up interfering with a MTB race.  Usually this would be a no brainer for me and I would be heading to the MTB race but because I had this pavement ride planned and the family looking forward to it I stuck to my guns and we were all Traverse City bound.

Although not my first choice of racing the weekend turned out to be awesome ending an unbelievable August for me.  I was going into the Roubaix quite tired from the prior races and training week so I had a mind set to just go have fun knowing I could still do well.  I spend a lot of time behind fast guys in the WORS races chasing all the time so this weekend I wanted people to chase me.  I planned to go for sprint points, KOM's, and be the instigator of attacks.

 

Day 1 - Downtown Criterium

The course was new this year and in my opinion better.  It used better streets, had safer corners, and was much faster.  I got to the start line and it quickly reminded me why I love mountain biking.  I wasn't on the line for 10 seconds before I had an official breathing down my back saying, "I should DQ you."  He was saying this because I folded the edge of my number to fit my jersey.  It did not cover the name or number but it did not sit well with him.  He started to fix it for me and kept telling me how I should be DQ'd.  I jokingly said to him, "I guess this is why I mountain bike."  I don't think that sat to well with him because he quickly left my presence and brought over another judge and told her, "You can DQ this guy if you want, he folded his number."  The lady looked at me and said, "Your fine.  I'm not that picky."  My goodness, at least some one was more worried about the race than a number.  Not everyone, but for the most part road racing is made up of a bunch of snobs if you ask me. "Put your number on right, hold your line, pull through, do some work, your wheel sucker. your only cat 3?"  Damn it strap you shoes on, put your helmet on, pin your number, shoot the gun and race.  

Anyhow I guess I should tell you how the race went.  It was a 30 minute + 1 lap.  I sat in the top 10 for the first 5 minutes or so sniffing out the course, finding good lines and good attack points.  The starter rang the bell for a money lap and I had all intentions of getting it.  Coming around the 3rd to last corner, about 1/4 out I pounded the speed out of a corner and nobody even responded.  I kept the pressure on and took the $50 prize with no problem.  There were several more money laps after this and I wanted everyone of them but 1 rider broke not long after the first one and had 100 yard gap on the field so I had no interest pulling the field to him to win another $50.  The win became more important at that time.  With 4 laps remaining I moved up to the front to match any attacks and plan mine.  1/2 a lap before I was roaring to go another ride made a small attack and I matched right away.  I looked behind and we had a small gap.  I yelled to him, "lets make this happen."  We shared pulls for the next 2 laps creating a larger gap.  With 1 to go a rider bridged up.  Coming into the last corners the rider that bridged up came to the front and made a great move around the last corner gapping me just enough to stay away during the sprint. I came flying in for 2nd.  I really wanted the win but was tactically beat.

 

Day 2 - Road Race

4 laps for 52 miles on a pretty hilly course.  For the most part they are rolling hills with no hill being extremely hard, just big enough to make you say "ouch."  My legs didn't feel all that great during my warm up so I had planned on sitting in for as long as it took for my legs to come around.  The first 2 laps were extremely slow and uneventful.  No one really wanted to do the work and the pace showed.  There were times my HR was 120 bpm, thats 2 beats away from my recovery zone!  At some point on the 2nd lap everyone sat up to where one rider that was leading rode away at 16 mph, no joke!  I knew this guy from the day before and he was one of the better riders.  Being that he was alone at 16 mph I went up to him so we could talk with no one else around.  I told him that something had to change and we at least had to shrink the field on this lap.  I had also shared this with Ryan Tervo, a fellow UP rider.  The plan was to get to the back side hills and the 3 of us ride tempo to shed a few bodies.  Coming over the first hill it did exactly that.  Starting up the 2nd one we continued tempo and when we reached the top I told the guys not to let up and keep tempo down the back side.  Approaching the bottom I noticed a gap from the whole field and simply told the 5 guys to keep riding tempo to see if we could keep the gap.  Two more riders bridged up and the 7 of us slowly rode away from the field.  The mission was accomplished and I knew we could finally start racing.  By the finishing climb we had lost 1 guy and at the top of the finishing climb we had lost another.  We were down to 5 with a pretty sizable gap for the last lap.  I could see some of the guys tiring by just riding tempo and I was feeling fine so attempted to keep the pace high.  A couple guys decided to slow down when pulling through and I wanted nothing to do with slowing down.  I pulled through before my turn and kept riding tempo as they tried to recover.  It started to create a gap so they quickly responded and this response ended up dropping 1 more rider.  Now down to 4 we were approaching the KOM hills again where we created the first gap.  My right hamstring started twinging a bit so I knew I wasn't in great shape for an attack so I told myself just stay steady and ride a heavy tempo of both hills.  I started the climb in front and by the top I had created a small gap.  I kept the pressure on down the hill to the base of the next climb and continued tempo.  I had now created an even larger gap and it wasn't what I was expecting.  On the decent I saw 2 rider crest the top and I noticed they stopped pedaling telling me they were tired.  That was my que to make this gap stick.  With 4 or so miles to go I shifted to TT position and rode a pace I knew I could keep.  I noticed one rider trying to bridge so I picked up the pace and pounded every little hill.  I noticed the gap staying the same and knew he was not catching me.  I approached final climb and rode it as if I still had a rider on my wheel.  I came around the last corner and saw my dad, he started to run next to me, and this gave me such an adrenaline rush.  I danced on the pedals to the finish and took every second to enjoy riding to a finish line by myself.  No matter what level you ride on, the feeling of a solo win is quite incredible.  The sense of accomplishment, enjoyment, and excitement rush through your blood.  I wanted to win this bad and I got to cross the line with a subtle fist pump all by my lonesome, exactly how I wanted it.

Straight A Photography