WORS #1 Iola Bump and Jump!

Finally! Mountain bike season has arrived and I kicked off with the Wisconsin Off Road Series #1, Iola Bump and Jump! I got my new bike dialed during the week and drove up mid day Saturday to preride with my team mate Mark Norton. The course was super loose with tons of dust and sand, but also lots of fast single track and hard climbs. After preride Mark and I drove over to my other team mate, Brian Christopherson's cabin where he cooked us some wonderful steaks and we hung out with my team president Dave Eckel, along with Tyson Hausdoerffer and his family. After relaxing by the lake for the rest of the evening and getting a good nights sleep, we woke up, I cooked breakfast, relaxed a bit more and fueled up before heading over to the race.

 I dialed my bike and gear, warmed up and went to the start, unfortunately I could tell my legs weren't great. I lined up fourth row surrounded by all the pro men, Don did the count down and we took off. Our field of 65 riders blew around the first turn and hammered up the first loose dirt climb in a giant cloud of dust. The whole first have of the course was lots of hard climbs often followed by fast tricky descents, made even more difficult by my heart beating at maximum capacity. The second part of the course is mostly fast, tight sandy single track. The first lap I thought I was going to die but after the second lap I settled in a bit more. Unfortunately I just couldn't really fight back and slowly lost places through out the race. On the fourth, final lap I took it back a notch on the climbs and flats, instead I hammered the single track, focusing on every turn and obstacle. I made back a place or two and and finished strong. Because I am a junior I do one less lap then the pros, but based on the people around me I would have finished about 20th to 25th overall in the Pro/Elite. In my category I won the Cat 1 15-16 and also beat all the 17-18.The heat, dust and distance took some getting used to after a long, awesome season of cross but it was a fantastic start to the season and I can't wait for whats to come! This weekend I will be doing a 3 hour solo WEMS race and then on to WORS #2 the week after!