I bet it would surprise folks to know that I’m trying to have more FUN when racing…it’s always fun, but MORE fun. Well……that’s what’s happening and I’m loving it. Don’t get me wrong there will be times for full gas. Don’t get me wrong I’m still riding my bike a ton. But as all things Apex evolve so are my personal goals. Instead of going all in all the time I’m planning on a few key events for 2020 to really go full gas and see how things shake out. One of those events has happened already in Fat Bike Worlds. Another is coming soon in Fat Birkie. A couple of big gravel events? Yep. Death mode for Dirty Kanza? Whatever it takes to get a selfie with the EF guys. If that happens I can retire…..haha!
Anyway…the FUN. Due to some BIG races/travel for 2020 I’m taking a very low key approach to a few events in order to keep budgeting reasonable! Marquette is a big drive and I was very fortunate to have the always selfless Chris Wiswell tag along with me for all things Polar Roll. We left Friday at 3PM and returned Saturday at 7 PM. Seriously. I slept on the floor in Jacob’s room Friday night. I raced my bike Saturday and hung around and chatted it up for maybe 2 hours and we hit the road. A few stops on the way home and 2 big key stops. First was the Amish Bakery 1/2 mile north of Reeve. 2nd one Escape on 2nd Ave in Reeve. I’m a huuuuge burger nut and this place is still in my top 5 all-time. I’ve now been there 3 times in the last few months. Seriously that good.
The race. It was supposed to be pretty warm and very windy. It was supposed to be the best by far trail conditions since the inception of the race. Well……almost. It was freezing as 8 AM startup there is eastern time so still really early. It was cold as heck and windy and I didn’t have quite enough clothes. Chris saved the day again as I left my 45NRTH Sturmfist 4’s at home. I brought my Nokkens because it was supposed to be warm. I’m a freeze baby. Chris had me covered with warmer gloves! I also had a lack of base layer. I wore 2 merino wool base layers and a wind-blocking layer. Still not enough under my insulated skin suit. That’s REAL BAD. I am worthless with a cold core temp.
So I stood inside the candy shop (OMG) until the very last second and we rolled out of town supposedly behind a snowmobile….ha. Well….we passed the snowmobile. Then the snowmobile couldn’t make the first turn. Then the snowmobile couldn’t get back ahead of us. Lesson learned for the snowmobile 🙂 But it was cool rolling out of town. The snowmobile trail start itself wasn’t super easy as it was smooth, but a little chewed and hard to ride in a pack. Guys were a little sketchy with handling because the handling was hard. I crashed once (big surprise), but chased right back on. The group rode hard in the wind / dead flat trail to the single track trailhead. By then we were shelled down to maybe 15. I made a big jump to get on Thomas and I believe we entered the single track as 10. I was last. Thomas next ahead of me. The big players right at the very front. That was bad.
Maybe 2 minutes of pavement like single track later we came to a major climb and our day playing at the front was over. The group of 10 had a man about 5th that couldn’t climb the climb with the front and he split the group. I bet we lost a full minute on that climb…..in the single track. Ouch. That made any hopes of getting back the leaders real hard. I didn’t care that much and just reminded Thomas we were there for fun. As we descended this climb of course guys began to ride away because I’m not a single track guy. Even Thomas rode off maybe 30 seconds ahead by the bottom. Oh well. Things ebbed and flowed and the trail was windblown and unrideable in a few spots unless you were first through. Stepping off your bike meant risking stepping off the trail base which meant automatically up to your hip in snow and lots of time re-gathering your bike…ha. Did that…..like 10 times! The worst section was right before we got back on the main snowmobile trail which we’d ride for an ~hour to Ishpeming. I couldn’t ride my bike. Big surprise. I got caught but jumped on the RR grade only to see nobody ahead, but everyone behind disappearing quickly.
Trouble was…I was cold and unmotivated to go hard. It was super windy and mostly headwind. Snowmobile trails for some reason are like riding on velcro. I would look down over and over and see a low heart rate (cold) and low speed (11). Ouch. But….Thomas appeared and I caught up so we could work together. But that became like DAMn. We knew the few in the back half of the lead group couldn’t be too far ahead. But it was like chasing a unicorn. We couldn’t see anyone and could see a mile up the trail at times! Ugh. We rode and rode and wouldn’t you know it we finally saw them. Obviously we went right to work even though I was freezing. Our new group of 6 was 3 then 2 then 4 then 2 then…..1. Dang….I was hoping to get Thomas to the next single track in Ishpeming, but it wasn’t to be and I was on my own.
We hit the single track around town and I was scared…I was also not aware that the entire darn race besides snowmobile was single track. I was hoping for a little more variety. We were now close to hitting the short course and with 15ish miles to go I was scared it would be shredded by early riders. Thankfully it was still pretty mint less the windblown sections (still can’t ride my bike on those). So I had to pee and my insulated bottle froze. It’s a FUN day so I pulled over. All the guys we caught on the RR grade passed me and I got a beautiful hit off the maple syrup. 6 oz of that was my nutrition for a 3.5-hour race. Zero sips of water! But I was cold. I bet I stood there enjoying life a little too much for a full 2 minutes 🙂
Back on the bike and in chasing mode having fun riding singletrack. I felt like I was sucking less and less at the single track and deja vu was setting in. We were riding portions of MARJI. Freaking awesome. The snow was covering the rocks and the climbs weren’t going all the way up, but instead maybe 3/4 of the way up. But it was like Marji. Up and down. Over and over. Wind blowing. I got warm for maybe 30 minutes total of the race in there somewhere. I caught everyone except 2 in our group. You don’t catch Matt Acker in single track….or I don’t. I rode with a guy named Dave Scott. He was a single track ninja so I told him to ride ahead and I’d follow. He’d roast me on the down cause I crashed about every other descent. I’d catch him on the ups and he’d beg me to pass. Nope. With maybe 4 miles to go he superman-ed into a tree…head first. Stuff cracked, but apparently not his body. We waited a sec to let him gather his wits. Not too much blood so I kept following him just in case. He was surviving but smiling. I was smiling. We were riding MARJI!
Dave and I kept chatting a bit here and there and with a half-mile to go we passed a couple short trackers and he got a gap. They let him through and not me. I jumped to catch back up just in case he wanted me to pass him…ha. Then turning into the home stretch I had a volunteer step in my path and I stopped. Dave kept going. Haha. If that was for the win it would have been bad. But I was there to smile and got 7th in a single track race. How cool is that! I rode my bike in fat bike heaven for 3.5 hours!
Again…..this they say was as good as it gets for Polar Roll. Todd and 906 do an absolutely wonderful thing with all things Marji, Polar Roll, and Crusher. The guy has massive local connection and it shows. They as in 906 seem to be an incredible organization. I still have handling issues. I still have tire choice issues. But I get better every time and didn’t go to the death zone and I smiled all the time. Dave laughed at me a couple times. I had one monster superman down a 25% grade. I probably set the KOM for most hike-a-bike among the top 30 finishers 🙂 but it was a freaking blast. We rode Marji trails. They weren’t rocky!
Just a wonderful day of bikes. I wished I was warmer and I wished I had liquid water. I wished I had bigger nobs on my tires. Other than that….perfection. Beautiful. Deep, white UP powder. Incredible.
For now….back to the grind. 3 weeks until the big one. I’ll smile there, but it’s going to hurt 🙂