"Single Speed" - WORS #3 Wausau

I've never been tempted to ride a single speed despite hearing that once you ride one you will want one. My gears are good to me and I like them. I'm not sure the last time a single speeder won a big race showing me that gears are worth it for the big shows. Well, besides Lalonde at the Cheq 40! But lets not get crazy here and compare anyone to that single speed phenom. He is a rare exception to speed without gears. He may be faster with no gears than he is with gears. Even his win at a Triple Crown doesn't draw my interest but last weekends race I felt as if I experienced my first single speed and I don't like it.

The Red Eye Rendezvous was giving us our 3rd weekend in a row of WORS action. A good city, a great course, and better company makes it easy to gear up 3 weekends in a row. We had a full team on hand and it is a nice treat when we can all pre-ride together, have dinner, and enjoy the other half of the sport.....Comradery. The weather even treated us to a near perfect day of sunshine and 60's.

I was a bit off from the beginning on race day when I lost my number plate, started my warm up late, and ate my bar too close to competition. My prep is as important as my race so it was not a good start for me even though I did fine my number and warm-up was had just not at the level I prefer. The start was good. I grabbed the whole shot into the first few turns without a problem. I settled until the single track and made my way to the top 5 for the first section. The course favors aggression as we do so much two track between single track it pays off at the end of the day to be upfront as much as you can. I did this well on the first lap but wasn't so successful on lap 2. I yo-yo ed a bit and was worked over catching back on. Not having a lot in reserve on the day these little efforts were crucial.

Lap 3 we pulled around in one big lead group with about 7 guys. Nobody really played much ball on the two track and we all battled for the single track. That was until Tristan had seen enough and hammered the pace on the front side climb. He hit it and I didn't react.. My mind was made up at that point from other efforts I wasn't going to burn another match. I figured steady would pull me along the rest of the day. That is when my bike felt like a single speed. No fast gears and no slow gears. Just 1 "go steady" gear. This wasn't a terrible thing but for the final 2 laps I had what I had. There was no go under and no going over just as I believe a single speed would feel like... Then again I've never ridden one so how would I know. :)

All in all, a good day for riding a physical and mental single speed. I rolled in 7th place at 2 1/2 minutes behind the leaders. All was made happy when I found out my teammate, Cooper Dendel, took her first WORS and pro win. What a huge accomplishment for her, our team, and the UP!! Here is to much more success Coop! We all celebrated appropriately with celebratory burritos.