Ore to Shore!

After a five hour drive to the U.P. and one stop for pasties my dad, sister and I arrived at the finish line Friday afternoon. We prerode the last five and a half miles of the course which really paid off. We dried off, washed our bikes and got some Mexican food before crashing at our host house.

The next morning we woke up at six, ate and headed to the course. My dad took his bike and a chair and sat in the first row behind the preferred starts to save our spots, which is important when it is a mass start of 950 people! I warmed up and went to my spot ten minutes before the start. They shot the gun and we took off. I moved up as fast as I could and went from 6th row to the front of the race by the second corner. I sat in but people were pretty squirrely so I moved to the front. As we turned onto the dirt after 5 miles of pavement we hit a descent and the big pack started to break up. No one wanted to work so I more or less pulled the entire race. Parker and I controlled it together and put in a few good attacks every now and then to try and slim down the pack. After awhile the group was down to 15 or 20 riders. I continued to push the pace but was still basically soft pedaling.

With about six and half miles to go we hit a big descent after some single track and two other riders started to hammer. The group started to shatter and we were down to group of six or eight riders. With just six to go some one buzzed my rear wheel and caused a break in the pack, I took that as an opportunity and attacked as hard as I could and only one rider could follow. I started to open up a gap on him and when we got to a climb the gap got to about 15 seconds. I kept hammering as I got to the last five miles that I had prerode. I started to get out of sight of the other rider and I kept laying down the power, I ripped through the sand dune-ish part of the course and down the sandy descent. I kept on fighting and started to get out of sight. After a long solo five miles I finally popped out of the woods and onto the pavement with one mile to go and saw no one behind me. I kept on the gas all the way to the finish line and won by exactly thirty seconds with a average of 20.3 mph! I was so stoked accomplish another one of my season goals and to do it with style :). My sister won the womens overall and was 16th overall, we were so stoked to take the men's and women's overall wins!

Emma, Me, My good  friend Carter who finished 10th overall!

Big thanks to my coach Joseph Maloney for helping me get this level of fitness and huge thanks to my family and my team, Team Wisconsin presented by KS Energy Services/MOSH for all the suppoprt! Also huge thanks to Brent Emery and Emerys Cycling, Triathlon and Fitness for helping me be able to race on the best race bike available! Also thanks to Trek Bicycles and Bontrager for supporting me and my team. Last but not least thanks to ESI Grips and Wolf Tooth Components for sponsoring me this season and allowing me to ride the best grips and  components possible! #cxiscoming

Awesome riding the next day with awesome people!