50 km report--Chequamegon

I raced the Chequamegon 40 on Saturday. This is a 40 mile mt bike race
from Hayward to Cable that covers oh, maybe 15 miles on the Birkie
trail. My approach was to see how I felt during the first 10 miles and
then take it from there. You could say I wasn't too worried about my
result.

I got off to a slow start and that meant I had to pass a lot of riders
once we hit dirt. Basically everyone busts ass during the 30 mph roll
out and up the big climb out of Rosie's field, and then the weaker
riders die. Some come unglued early, but many unravel on the second
(hilly) section of Birkie trail about 5-8 miles from the finish. The
death knell tolls....

At about 30 miles, I had some chain suck, and it must have hit the
connector link perfectly (based on post mortem analysis) because the
chain broke. I removed the chain, found I was missing a bushing, so I
grabbed a bushing from some extra links (yes, I brought extra links),
and connected the chain with a chain tool. There were two problems
from my haste: I threaded the chain through the jockey wheels
incorrectly so the chain rubbed on a tab between the wheels, and the
chain was one link short. Unfortunately, I didn't recognize my error
and didn't want to stop to check the problem, so I rode the rest of
the race with that grinding, and nearly wore off the derailluer tab.
Yeah, I'm dumb, but I've done the same thing with the bike on a stand.
The difference is that after a half turn of the cranks, I know I
screwed up. For some reason, when I was sitting in the saddle, I
didn't recognize the sound.

In spite of my screwed up drivetrain, I actually felt like I was
riding pretty strong. Passed Pete Thurmes and All Hanson and I rode
the final section of Birkie trail strong and got on with a good pack
heading for the finish. This last section includes a few miles of
downhill dirt road where a pack can really fly. Then there's 2 miles
of steep little rollers before the finish.

On the first of those rollers, my chain sucked past my
"anti-chainsuck" device and jammed my cranks. I can't really get on my
bike without using the pedals, and the pedals were in the wrong
position for gliding down hills, so I used the chain tool to break the
chain again. Instead of connecting the chain again (I was worried I
torqued it), I simply ran the bike in. A few guys said things like "no
chain....bummer." I jumped on my pedal to mount the bike, and my shoe
slid off the pedal. The cranks spun around and a pedal nailed my shin.
One guy said, "That looks like it hurt."

As I "scootered" into the finish, the crowd loved it. I got big cheers
as I ran up the final hill trying to fend off one more passing rider
(out of a hundred that streamed by), but of course he passed me.

380th or so. Shin is still recovering.

Jay Wenner

Thanks for the report!

Doncha hate sports that have equipment with lotsa little moving parts?

--

Jeff Potter
****
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