Fat Bike Race

I was lucky enough to not have hockey practice this past Sunday so I decided to head up to Elk River for the first race of the Cold Bear Challenge.
The beginning was typical of the races up there. More people standing around and bullshitting rather than riding the trainer and waiting for the best starting position.
I got excited when I saw they were giving away a 9Zero7 frame and carbon fork at the final race of the series. I don't know which one I'd like more. Probably the fork. I'd spend the $600 for the frame, but I don't know if I could justify the cost of the fork($400), especially with the beating that I put on my Pugsley. Plus there's all the "hidden" costs to winning the frame. I'd have to move my components over to the new frame and I would ultimately decide that they were unworthy of the new frame and buy new ones... Oh well, given my track record of winning things I'd be happy to leave there with a free GU pack.

Back to the race.
It had a new prologue that was fun to ride. I entered the singletrack in about 11th and was happy riding there for a bit. I only wore two layers of clothing but quickly realized that it was too much. I decided to suffer through it and not stop to shed some clothing. I passed a couple people, but was then passed by two riders that had been behind me the whole time when I fell on a patch of ice.

I settled into a good spot and rode by myself for a majority of the race. My main goal was not to get passed by the skinny tired bikes. It wasn't till the end of section 4 that I was passed by the first guy. I wouldn't see another one for a while.

I got to section 1 and was ready to put the hammer down but it was icy as shit. I fell 3 times and saved myself from falling about 3 more times on icy turns. The bike would just slide out from under me. I hit my thumb pretty hard one time and was sure that it was busted open and bleeding but I decided not to look.

I made it through and headed on my second lap feeling good. Shortly into section 3 at the stairs I locked up my rear brake and went down hard again. Now my pointer finger was in real pain and I was fairly certain it was broken, but once again I decided not to look at it and since it didn't hurt holding on to the bar on went on. I shook the cobwebs quickly and got through the remainder of section 3 pretty quickly. Section 4 was tough, but I made it through alright.

Once again I wanted to use some of my reserves of sections 1 and 2 but was nervous about the ice. I went a little faster as I could see that the sun had melted some of the slick spots. As I neared the end I saw a guy that I had passed a little earlier start to creep up on me and decided to go fast and if I fell, I fell. I made it through fine and finished strong.

All in all it was a good race. I ended up finished 15th out of 33 finishers (37 starters) 16 minutes behind 1st and about 10 minutes behind everyone else. There were a lot of areas that I can improve on that I think will cut a lot of time.

Other weekly notes:

Still waiting on the final entrants list for the Ragnarok.

I mailed in my postcard for the Almanzo 100.

If I had to make a guess there are not A LOT of people registering for the Leadville 100. I seem to get weekly emails from Lifetime that start out about losing weight and then throw in Leadville at the end. I'm still not sold that I really want to do it again this year. There are other races out there that I'd like to try out. But, I really like the feeling when I finish that thing. There's nothing like it.

It seems that a lot of people have already fallen off the wagon and are not going to the gym, which is good for me.

That's it!