WORS XC#6 Chippewa Valley Firecracker (Eau Claire) Cat 1

Posted by joel on July 12, 2010

Sunday was the sixth race in the WI Off road series, the Chippewa Firecracker. Lowes Creek, although situated on only 240 acres has some great flowing single track that’s well maintained and frequently updated. I drove over to Eau Claire with my fellow Bikeman.com rider Matt Block. Once we arrived the temperature was in the lower 80’s and somewhat humid.

The Niner Air9 was cleaned  and dialed-in after about two hours worth of maintenance and TLC from the day before. The race start was quick as one might expect for a Cat 1 XC race and since I’m not in the top 10-15 riders I had to succumb to the bottlenecking when entering the first single-track section. The trails were in excellent condition for racing with just enough moisture to make them tacky. Though there was a large section of open field (which was dry and dusty) that wasn’t the case for most of the course.

After three laps, I started feeling the fatigue that sets in as usual, but was still able to clear the 50 ft very technical rock section near the lap/finish area on each lap. Feeling hydrated and having popped enough gels, lap four felt good as well. On the fourth and final lap, near the end of the 50 ft rock section I wasn’t sure if I could clear it as I came to a complete stand still / stall. Then, someone in the crowd started yelling in my ear, “you can clear it!”. Sufficed to say that was the motivation I needed. I cleared the difficult rocky section and finished my race. After racing for just over 2hr and 22 mins my time was good enough for 7/16 and 33/65. I was happy with my result and am looking forward to racing at the Levis Trow 50 miler this coming weekend.