Cable Off Road Classic

I’d wanted to prep really good for this years race as ’07 edition had been a disappointment for me. Each of the two weeks before the race I drove down to Cable and gave the course a run. In fact I had some pretty wild encounters on my previous pre-rides, the Weds before the race about half way into the course I come across what I first imagined at a distance to be black squirrels… but as I got closer…oh wait, shit, those aren’t black squirrels. That’s right, some of the tiniest baby black bear cubs you've ever seen. Dangit, dangit, dangit!! There they are 100 feet in front of me in the middle of the trail with no Mama bear in sight – key words “in sight”. Now what? Well, for those of you who’ve never watched Animal Planet, or Wild America, or even the other weeks Grey’s Anatomy, you’ll know the next dumbest thing to walking through a hostile area of Bagdad unarmed, is coming between a mother Black bear & it’s cubs. So I reposition my bike for an well advised escape and start yelling at these unassuming bears. (I sort felt bad scaring the little guys), the little one’s scampered up the near 100yr old White Pines while Mama reared her big ‘ole head long enough so I could see her off to the left heading in what would appear to be the opposite direction. With that in mind, I tried to remember if the trail --which was starting to go around the corner -- doubled back or not. Well, I didn’t remember and just decided to make a go and fly down that trail as fast as I could.... figuring I may not hit the top speed of 30 mph to out run the bear on this trail, but if I could do 20+mph it might take her long enough to give up the chase and lose her appetite. As it turned out, I’m here today to post with all body parts intact so the story ended well. Except for the odd chance that when I got home that night at 1:40am I’m awaken from my deep slumber to my 4 dogs going crazy at something outside on our deck – wouldn’t you know it… another Mama black bear and 2 cubs. DANG, they followed me all 40 miles back home!! Ok, ok maybe not the exact same black bears but definitely their cousins to the north of the Bibon swamp. What are the odds of that happening with 6 hours of each other?

So what’s that got to do with the Cable Off Road Classic race itself? Nothing.
Anyways, I was coming off a slightly poor training week, and hadn’t road the previous couple days because I was too busy cutting trails at the house and doing yard work. So Saturday morning I’m all stiff & sore, so I get on the bike at house for a quick 20 min spin before driving to the race. I gave a couple hard efforts that had me feeling even worse, so now I’m almost convinced I’ve screwed up my prep for this race. However, I packed up and took the 45 min drive down to Lakewoods, got registered only to find out all the preferred starts had been sold out (ouch!). Oh well, guess that’s going to make for an even more interesting race today. As soon as I start warming up however, I feel really strong and can ride fast without feeling crappy unlike about an hour previously—hmmm… maybe it will be an ok race. I get to the start late but fortunately a super nice racer I’ve known for years Don Freitag from Marshall, WI let me bump in front of him about halfway back in the 250 person race. At the horn, I knew I had to pounce on every opportunity to get close to the top 40 or 50 to have any kind of chance, of not getting trapped in single track purgatory at the 1 ½ mile mark. It’s where the entry to the single track on this course gets backed up horrendously. I snap up a bunch of places rather quickly as I’m feeling strong but also putting out a big, big effort. I hear words of encouragement on the first hill from Tom Gaier and jump past another dozen riders. Later on I catch up to what I guess is the tail end of the preferred start as I pull up next to good ‘ole Paul Belknap and give him a tap on the back. He looked to be riding good himself. I got to the single track about 8 spots too late. A line begins to form and I’m stuck behind 4 or 5 single track technically challenged bikers for the next 10 minutes. Sure it’s frustrating but once it happens there’s nothing you can do about it except bide your time and give positive encouragement to those in front of you. (Cuz when was the last time yelling or complaining hasn’t made the lesser skilled rider in front of you screw up anyways and slow things down further).
Once back in the double track I hammer on again picking up more places. This is unusual for me because I tend to start real fast and slowly drop places, this time the roles are reversed and it’s actually a good feeling. Without a ton of play by play for the remainder of the race, I crept up from around 50th position to the mid 20’s. It was hard but doable as with each mile another racer would show up in the horizon and I (or we, if a group was with) would pass up yet another person. Catching people slowed up by mile 18 or 20 of the 23 mile race and from that point on it was just a hard push to the finish. As I recall there was a group of 3 of us with maybe 2 or 3 more pursuers of which gaps would open and close with the hurdling of downed trees & logs (from the previous night’s wind storm that littered the course). I should have probably taken more water, endurance drink or gel but taking the time to do it and having the opportunities were seemingly challenging. In reaching the final 2 mile rail road corridor stretch, I was so anticipating this part of the race because much of my training this spring has been on flat sections and this was the perfect the opportunity to push a fast steady, unchanging cadence. Essentially a Time Trial at the end of the race, perfect! Only I was quickly running out of reserves and knew I was in trouble as five of us hit the corridor. Pete O’donnell (whom I outlasted at last years Duluth Dirt Spanker), Matt Muyres, Shawn Gort & Adam Staufenburg – it lined up like a team time trial and Muyres started to rail it. I think O’donnell & Gort took turns as well. I was able to hang on in the first mile but couldn’t hold out for the last, Shawn proved to be the strongest at the end leading not only our group but grabbing an additional 3 places from a group that was in front of us. I wound up 31st on the day in just over 1hr 47min. Happy but not elated -- given the circumstances of the start, it was respectable.
I gotta make mention of one great race done by follow Ashlander, Paul Belknap, no sooner had I crossed the line and was walking back to great Katie and kids I see Paul come cruising in across the line, twelve spots back and just under 3 minutes behind. For someone just getting off the CC ski’s not so long ago and with relatively few miles/hours on the bike I thought it was phenomenal!! Way to go!
Next on tap is some rest, then back to intervals and onto my first WORS race of the year in Wausau June 1st.