Bumped From The Schedule

Wisconsin weather strikes again!

I’m taking the Iola Bump & Jump off my schedule. Iola is going to get more than an inch of rain tomorrow and that will wipe out the pre-ride window, then on Sunday the skies will be overcast and the wind chill will be 48° for the Cat 2 (Sport) race at 11:30 a.m. With no opportunity to pre-ride an unfamiliar course, and faced with a cold mudfest, I’m staying home.

Skipping Iola has big implications for my WORS season. There are 11 scoring opportunities, the best 7 of which count in the series standings. I got series points back on May 6 at the Englewood Opener. Now I have just 9 more chances to score. Distant races like the Red Flint Firecracker in Eau Claire (June 25) and the Hixon Forest Epic in La Crosse (August 6) have always been nothing more than “maybes” on my calendar. The WORS Cup offers 2 scoring opportunities—cross country on Saturday, July 8, and short track or enduro on Sunday, July 9—but the unusual race schedule meshes badly with my work schedule. Without 7 results there is no prospect of a high finish in the series standings, and the most realistic path to that goal now looks like this:

06/04 - Battle Of CamRock
06/18 - Mt. Morris Challenge
07/08 - WORS Cup: XCO
07/09 - WORS Cup: STXC
07/23 - Colectivo Coffee Bean Classic
08/20 - Reforestation Ramble

Racing at Iola would be unpleasant enough for me under the conditions the weather forecast describes, but it also might compromise my WEMS ambitions. The Stump Farm 100 is coming up next Saturday and I don’t want to miss it because of illness, injury, or mechanical failure. WEMS also uses the “best 7” format to determine series champions and I won’t get to 7 results in that series, but at least I should get to the minimum of 4 results I need to be award-eligible. Stump Farm will be my second WEMS race this year—Alpine Valley was the first—and I already have registered for the 3 races at the end of the season:

09/09 - Northern Kettles Fall Epic
09/16 - 9 Hours Of Silver Lake
10/07 - GEARS Greenbush Grinder (WEMS Championship)

So, 2017 still looks like a very full year of mountain bike racing even without Iola and, perhaps, without some of the other WORS dates.

9 Hours Of Alpine Valley

Climbing well despite too much belly fat! (Brittany Nigh photo)

Last Saturday was peculiar. After working overnight, I crawled into a quiet corner of my office building and slept for a while. It didn’t make sense to drive back to West Bend from Brookfield, then hang out at home for a few hours, and then drive south again for the 9 Hours Of Alpine Valley WEMS race. Taking an hour of driving off my schedule made for an easier approach to a day that I knew would be challenging enough.

I didn’t have high expectations for my race performance, and I didn’t get a high finish: 26th of 39 men in the 3-hour division. I clipped a tree early in Lap 1 and crashed, dropping me behind some traffic that I wouldn’t have fallen behind otherwise. On a course that is almost all singletrack, it took a while to reclaim the spots I lost. Meanwhile, a couple of guys with whom I thought I would contend were able to get away and I never saw them again. But meandering across the Alpine Valley ski hill, I was very pleased with my climbing ability. To whatever extent I had success against other racers, that was the reason. My descending skills remain shoddy but they got a good workout that afternoon, and only by challenging myself will I improve.

In a typical year I don’t show up until I have enough fitness to compete at a reasonable level. This spring I am trying to race myself into shape. I consider last Saturday a success because I pushed much harder than I would have in a non-competitive environment. I also picked up some series points that will be useful later. I’m expecting a better result on May 27 in the Stump Farm 100 at the Brown County Reforestation Camp in Suamico, where I usually race well. But my real targets on the WEMS calendar come at the end of the season: the Northern Kettles Fall Epic on September 9, the 9 Hours Of Silver Lake on September 16, and the WEMS Championships on October. It’s a long season and clearly I’m not yet where I need to be, but the wheels are in motion.

Try Some Buy Some

If you live in southeastern Wisconsin, then during the next week you will have two great opportunities to test ride new bikes from Giant and Rocky Mountain. Giant’s demo day will include road and mountain bikes. It will run from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. this Saturday, May 20, at the John Muir trailhead in Walworth County. Hosted by Belgianwerkx, Rocky Mountain’s demo day will be a mountain bike-only affair at Pleasant Valley in Ozaukee County, 4-8 p.m. next Tuesday, May 23. Both events are free, but remember your state trail pass and state parks vehicle sticker if you go to John Muir. You can buy 1-day passes at the trailhead if you don’t have annual passes.

Ride 2,000

Pretty standard stuff ... with two notable exceptions.

Today’s ride was short: 22 miles with only 531 feet of climbing, completed in a little less than 1.5 hours. Really it was just an easy spin on my cyclocross bike, a “recovery” ride on the day after a much larger effort. But it was a significant ride nonetheless because (1) it was my 2,000th ride since my life as a cyclist began back in 2004, and (2) my left knee didn’t hurt.

So, what was this much larger effort on Saturday? The WEMS race at Alpine Valley. And why did I think my left knee might hurt? Because I crashed in the WEMS race at Alpine Valley. The crash didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. It happened just a couple of minutes into the race, and I then rode for about 2.5 hours without any discomfort. But my knee got tight overnight and had me limping around the house this morning. I was relieved that it didn’t bother me at all during this afternoon’s ride. In another day or two it should be back to normal.

I’ll post a race report as soon as WEMS posts yesterday’s results. I know I didn’t have a high finish, but I left Alpine Valley yesterday with literally no idea how many people finished ahead of me or behind me. I don’t think I have ever done that before, and I hated to do it but I couldn’t wait around any longer than I did. WEMS switched to a new scoring system this season and so far things have been a little clunky.

2017 Englewood Opener

Team Extreme’s Stuart Shelton and Jeff Wren took the top spots.

The 2017 Wisconsin Off-Road Series began in Fall River on Saturday and I was there, using the occasion to begin my own racing season. In fact, I started the race from the front row and was solidly in the Top 5 on a long, uphill leadout into a stiff wind. But the ambitious start was too much, too soon: halfway through the first lap, I had dropped back to the middle of the pack. And that’s where I would finish, 8th place out of 16 in the Sport (Cat 2) 50-54 age group at the Englewood Opener.

Lap 1 was considered a prologue: a shorter lap that omitted most of the technical sections of the course. The idea was to create separation between riders and thereby prevent bottlenecks at the rock gardens and other tricky spots. The strategy worked for the most part, but with a big field of riders there was always someone for me to chase and always someone just behind. I was 91st out of 166 overall.

On Lap 2, feeling a little ragged from the aerobic challenge of the prologue, I ran through a couple of technical sections rather than risk a crash. If I still had been in the Top 5, then I would have accepted the risk, but I didn’t lose much time in the bargain. By the midpoint of Lap 2 I had settled down and my handling skills were feeling sharper. That helped me to recapture a couple of positions. I had ridden singletrack just 5 times this year prior to Saturday. Some of Englewood’s technical sections were at the limit of my ability, but I rode them all on Lap 3 with growing confidence. I spent the entirety of Lap 3 with teammate Larry Hipps, and together we picked off a few stragglers while defending ourselves from pursuers. The podium spots were out of reach but we did well to consolidate our positions. In the end, it was a Washington County 1-2: Stuart Shelton of Hubertus took the win, followed by West Bend’s Jeff Wren.

I’m OK with my result. During Friday’s pre-ride, I knew the technical sections would be a problem for me. But I also knew that I would do well on the open areas of the course, including the many climbing sections. Englewood was a must-do because it was new and because it was just 56 miles from home. That makes it the second-closest venue in a series that includes dates in Eau Claire and La Crosse. I haven’t committed to all 10 races, but I am glad to have opened my series points account. In the week to come I will spend more time on singletrack and more time on hills in preparation for the next WORS race, the Iola Bump & Jump on May 21. Whether that means I will line up for next Saturday’s WEMS race remains to be seen, though there may be no better preparation for Iola than the course at Alpine Valley.

New Fane, New Look

Presenting the new Pedal Moraine jersey!

Today I returned to New Fane for some badly needed time on singletrack. I had not been on the mountain bike since I visited New Fane on April 15 & 16. I can attribute the layoff to an overabundance of rain and wet trails, but it’s also true that I was wavering in my commitment to the WORS season opener this Saturday. When I finally made the decision to race, the decision to practice followed swiftly.

If only I were riding swiftly! I can’t claim that yet. I did 2 short laps today and then 2 full laps. My full-lap times were 27:23 and 27:33, respectively. Those were my fastest laps this year, but I’m still about 30 seconds per lap behind the pace I set in last year’s Northern Kettles Fall Epic.

Tomorrow is another day … one that I will spend pre-riding the Englewood Opener course. I’m curious and optimistic about a purpose-built XC race course: trails not designed to be ridden, but to be raced. That’s unique in Wisconsin and it’s rare in most other parts of the country. We’re behind the rest of the world when it comes to course design, and it shows. Pre-riding is always a good idea and even if my fitness isn’t great at least my mental preparation for Saturday can be strong. It’s a huge advantage to be familiar with the course when others are not. For some of my WORS rivals who are used to Sunday races, the unusual schedule of the opening weekend will be a hardship. The Friday pre-ride window won’t fit everyone’s schedule. For me, it will be an opportunity to gain an edge. I have no real expectations for my performance on Sunday. I will be happy just to get the first race of the year under my belt, gain a little fitness by pushing myself harder than I could in training, and grab some points in the series standings. A good result would inspire me to be more active in the series than I might be otherwise, but I haven’t done enough this year to deserve a good result.

Not Your Average Cheesehead Roubaix

Lovers Lane is bad enough when it’s dry! Click here to see all the great Moroder Photography shots.

In years to come I hope I will remember the 2017 Cheesehead Roubaix as “the weird one.”

Today was the 8th annual running of my interpretation of the Spring Classics, and it was notable for two things. The first was the weather. Around here, an average April 30 has a low temperature of 40° overnight and a high temperature of 61° in the afternoon. Today’s high temperature was 41° ... and that doesn’t figure in the winds. With 10-20 mph winds from the northeast, the wind chill was in the low 30s. (It was 27° early this morning when I was setting up some of the signs along the route.) Mist and light rain fell throughout the ride. Conditions were just about as bad as they could have been. At least it didn’t snow, I guess. At least there wasn’t any lightning, I guess.

The second thing that made this year’s Cheesehead Roubaix so different for me was that I didn’t ride it. As the event’s creator, I had never missed a chance to see the ride from behind the handlebar. But today I saw it from behind the steering wheel of my minivan. In fact, I saw most of the route more than once. Cheesehead Roubaix is intended for the self-sufficient, but conditions were so rough today that my conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave the riders without any support. As you might imagine, poor weather had a dramatic effect on the turnout. For the last couple of years I have been getting about 300 riders, but today I had only about 30. That meant each rider had fewer companions on whom he/she could rely, and many riders rode long stretches of the route alone. A couple of riders bugged out after climbing Lovers Lane. At least 11 abandoned at the Belgianwerkx-sponsored rest stop in the Village of Belgium, roughly halfway through the route. I provided transportation for 2 of them. Short-cutting the route on my return to Belgium, I saw a few more riders feeling their way back to Newburg.

Newburg itself was a little different this year. During the winter, an ice jam caused the Milwaukee River to flood Newburg Fireman’s Park. The fire department is still working to reverse the damage, and the parking lot was not available to us today. We’ve had nearly double the normal amount of rainfall for April, slowing the park’s restoration. But the fire department did come through with a portable toilet, and the post-ride snacks available at the concessions stand were a nice treat for several riders. Between concessions sales and cash donations, today netted about $300 for the department—a big drop from last year, but not bad under the circumstances.

Today’s ride was challenged by some of the worst weather Cheesehead Roubaix has ever seen. When the temperature is 20° below normal and the whole day is wet, windy, and dark … what can you do? Today the people behind the ride supported the riders in more direct and personal ways than ever before. Next year we might have beautiful weather and 300 riders and a bucket full of cash for the fire department and things will be back to normal. And normal at Cheesehead Roubaix is pretty great. Today was weird, but hopefully the people who showed up thought it was pretty great anyway. We did our best to make it so.

Let’s Take It Statewide

All of Wisconsin deserves a cyclocross series, not just the I-94 corridor.

Yesterday’s release of the 2017 WCA cyclocross calendar once again confirmed the big city bias of which I have written before. And I don’t mean that as an indictment of the people behind the series. It makes sense to hold races where a lot of people will attend and where the promoters can at least cover their costs. Where do you find a lot of people? In the I-94 corridor that connects Milwaukee and Madison.

Races in cities like Oshkosh and Wausau prove that even great promoters with great courses cannot count on the support of racers from the I-94 corridor. As I have said before, the big city racers are spoiled to the point where a lot of Milwaukee folks skip the Madison races and a lot of Madison folks skip the Milwaukee races! The SuperCup—the 12 races that actually count toward the series championship—is split evenly between Milwaukee and Madison. And only your best 6 results count in the SuperCup standings, so in theory you could win the championship without ever leaving your home territory.

Maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe Wisconsin is just too big for one series. It’s 430 miles from the Superior in the northwest to Kenosha in the southeast. This isn’t a small state and our population is not evenly distributed across it. So, what if instead of marginalizing races in cities like Oshkosh and Wausau, we made them important to their own series? Take the 18 races on the 2017 WCA schedule, pull out the state championship because it belongs to everybody, and split the others by region:



For now, drop the “best 6” provision and count all race results within each regional series. The “best 6” concept can be revisited if the regional series grow. And let them grow! Allow each region to establish its own schedule even if the dates conflict. Some will argue that to do so would be to split a finite pool of racers into too many small pieces, making it harder for promoters to attract enough racers to cover their costs. I don’t agree. We’re already split. Just look at the results of past races to see how reluctant racers are to leave home turf. The greatest challenge to multiple races on the same date may be the availability of USA Cycling officials. While I’m not sure we have enough at present, we can do more to attract, train, and then retain them.

What if you could add Green Bay and Appleton to SuperCup-North? What if SuperCup-North split into Northeast and Northwest someday after welcoming places like Superior, Eau Claire, La Crosse, and exurban Minneapolis-St. Paul into the fold? The current WCA model discourages racing in those parts of the state. There is and shall remain just one state championship, and it’s a big enough prize to pull in people from all over. But clearly the SuperCup is not. The “best 6” rule is itself a concession to the reluctance of racers to travel to every race in pursuit of every point. By splitting the series into regions, every race would matter again, if only within their own regions, and markets the WCA has either ignored or underserved would have a chance to develop.

The 2017 WCA Cyclocross Schedule

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

This morning the Wisconsin Cycling Association announced its 2017 cyclocross schedule and there are definitely some surprises. Here’s the schedule itself:

09/09 Sa - SuperCup: Cross-Shooshko, Milwaukee
09/10 Su - SuperCup: VeloCause CX, Milwaukee
09/30 Sa - Flyover Silver Creek CX, Manitowoc
10/01 Su - Cross Of The North, Wausau
10/07 Sa - SuperCup: PumpkinCross, Grafton
10/08 Su - Diablo River Cross, Kimberly
10/14 Sa - SuperCup: Fitchonia Cross Omnium, Dane County
10/15 Su - SuperCup: Fitchonia Cross Omnium, Dane County
10/21 Sa - SuperCup: GP Jo Vanderaffe, Milwaukee
10/22 Su - SuperCup: Battle Of Waterloo, Waterloo
10/28 Sa - SuperCup: Crossfire @ Angell Park, Sun Prairie
10/29 Su - SuperCup: Sun Prairie Cup @ Sheehan Park, Sun Prairie
11/04 Sa - SuperCup: Estabrook Park, Milwaukee
11/05 Su - SuperCup: CamRock CX, Cambridge-Rockdale
11/11 Sa - SuperCup: Sijan Cross, Milwaukee
11/12 Su - FatKats CX, Sheboygan
11/18 Sa - Sunnyview Cross, Oshkosh
12/02 Sa - SuperCup: State Championships, Waterloo

Surprise #1: So many Sundays! There is a faction within the WCA that wants to confine this series to Saturdays as much as possible, leaving Sundays open for the Chicago Cyclocross Cup series. Chicago races attract larger fields that include more top-quality racers, making them more valuable to elite Wisconsin racers looking to improve their USA Cycling rankings for nationals. I expected to see some movement away from Sundays this season, but that aspect of the schedule didn’t change.

Surprise #2: Cross Of The North is back. As a new event in 2016, it featured a great course … but dismal attendance due to its location. Wausau is simply too far away from the big population centers of Milwaukee and Madison. Those who do give this race a try will not be disappointed.

Surprise #3: With the GP Jo Vanderaffe, cyclocross will return to Milwaukee’s Mitchell Park Domes. That’s where I did my first-ever cyclocross race back in 2011.

Surprise #4: No Halloween-themed race. It was a tradition at Washington Park in Milwaukee. Then a muddy race damaged the park in 2015 and the threat of rain prompted Milwaukee County to cancel the event in 2016. (OK, maybe this one isn’t that much of a surprise.)

Surprise #5: After a 1-year absence, Sheboygan returns to the schedule … under new management. The FatKats, better known as a mountain biking team, have stepped up to replace Sheboygan Bicycle Company.

And now here’s something that won’t surprise anyone who kept up with my 2016 cyclocross season: I’m going to miss most of these races.

This season my top competitive priority is mountain biking. I’m already registered for WEMS races on Sep. 9 and Oct. 7, dates that otherwise would belong to cyclocross. Cyclocross is still important but I'm not going to put as much pressure on myself as I have in recent years. For example, I have always wanted to do Patriot CX—Sep. 10 in Rantoul IL—but it has always conflicted with something else. And it does again this year, but why shouldn't I do it anyway? Also, as I demonstrated last season, I am reluctant to travel very far for a Saturday race, given the overnight work schedule that keeps me in the office until 7 a.m. on Saturdays. So, this might be the extent of my 2017 WCA schedule:

10/08 Su - Diablo River Cross
10/21 Sa - SuperCup: GP Jo Vanderaffe
10/22 Su - SuperCup: Battle Of Waterloo
11/04 Sa - SuperCup: Estabrook Park
11/05 Su - SuperCup: CamRock CX
11/11 Sa - SuperCup: Sijan Cross
11/12 Su - FatKats CX
11/18 Sa - Sunnyview Cross

Those 8 races plus Patriot CX plus Region Riot Cross in Crown Point IN on Nov. 26 would give me 10 for the year, which is the same number of cyclocross races I typically do. Let’s face it: I’m not competing for a series title or state championship. I should build a schedule that makes me happy.

Stick Around For Joy

This weekend got off to a terrible start. I was at work early Saturday morning when the news of Michele Scarponi’s death reached me. There really is no other sport that loses its stars during training. Automobile racing? It’s not the same. Test laps at the track are conducted in a controlled environment. Scarponi’s training ride was on open roads near home. Like mine. That’s what makes these situations so hard to take. When the best riders in the world can die in almost stereotypical fashion, then how can we deny our own vulnerability? I know the risks, I accept the risks, and I do everything I can to mitigate the risks. There’s a right way to conduct your business out there. It doesn’t guarantee that you will come home, but it greatly improves your chances. As I rode this weekend I thought of Scarponi, and of Amy Dombrowski and of Burry Stander, and still I rode without fear. They weren’t martyrs. I don’t intend to be one either. I’m not riding the roads to prove a point; I’m riding the roads because it pleases me. To degrees great and small, risks are everywhere. Some can be avoided entirely—I will never die in a skydiving accident because I will never go skydiving—but many cannot. Anything to which you give your heart comes with the risk of loss. Your spouse may leave you. Your children may grow up to disavow you. Your friends may betray you. But most likely, those people will be sources of great joy. Cycling is one of my great joys—one of only a few—so it’s worth the risk.

Early this morning I drove most of the Cheesehead Roubaix route and it’s looking good for next Sunday. The wildcard is the weather. Too much rain in the days before the ride could force a detour from low-lying Jay Road, but even rain on Sunday morning will not cancel the event.

There’s no rain in the forecast tomorrow, though, or on Tuesday, and I will need good training rides on both days to make up for the poor effort I gave today. This week I’m going to hit 1,000 miles for 2017, but I’m still not in any kind of groove. I always look to the completion of the first 1,000 miles as a major goal, because historically I “switch on” at that time. No promises this year … except that I will keep looking for the switch.