WORS Big Ring Classic race report

Well, on Saturday morning we loaded up the Prius with a couple tents, 4 sleeping bags, race clothing, a bit of food, helmets, and 4 MTB’s on top. We headed out of Madison in the morning and made it to Nine Mile Forest in Wausau, WI mid-day.

We pulled into the parking lot and were directed to take a “parking spot/camping site” on the line of trees. We have not been tent camping for many years and the last time we only lasted one night before we made our way to a local hotel. We do have a boat that we spend many nights during the summer on at anchor, which really is just like camping except for the fact that the boat has a full kitchen, beds, bathroom with shower, heater, A/C, etc – so it is kind of like camping in a motor home – not like tent camping.

After getting the tents put together and then driving into Rib Mountain for lunch, we hit the MTB trails. Nine Mile Forest is really a cross-country ski park with some single-track trails running in-between the cross-country ski trails. We had hoped to just get in a few single tracks and then head back to the camp site for a bit, but that didn’t happen. The maps don’t really show you the MTB trails, just the ski trails – so, we ended up going for probably a 10 mile bike ride and for youngest Mini (with his smaller MTB) this was quite hard. The single track was fun with many rocks all over the course and the more difficult areas having large rocks with very tight paths (trees on both sides).

My parents made their way up from Madison and stopped by for dinner and then the next day for the race. That evening it was a bit hard to sleep with around 500 people camping in a small parking lot, but it was also very fun and everyone was having a good time. After moving from the tent to the car and then using the kid’s Ipod to knock down the sounds from the camp fires, I was able to get some sleep.

In the morning, they had some vendors come in with a coffee stand and another that was serving breakfast. We ate some bagels that we had a got the bikes ready to roll. Mrs. Team BRAZO, Oldest Mini, and myself raced at 10AM and Youngest Mini raced at 1PM.

I was in the 35 to 49 year old wave. Normally for any race that I participate in – I just go out and have fun – don’t really try to race anyone, just my time (i.e. 5k, 10k, etc), but today I decided I was going to race just a bit and see how it would go. So I put my bike kind of in the middle of the wave and off we went. I figured that I’d have more endurance than a few of the riders and my goal today was to get in front of them right away instead of my normal approach of catching them at the end.

Out of the shoot, I pushed as hard as I could to get in towards the front pack. Once I got past the riders in the back, I pretty much did not get passed from that point forward (outside of a few here and there). The course was a bit different in the fact that it had probably 50% double track and 50% single track. Most of the double track was going up hill – and up hill – and up hill, it was non-stop hills. The first lap I pushed the hills as much as I could and was able to pass a few riders. Once we hit the single track, I was very tired and needed to concentrate hard on keeping myself on the bike.

Because I was actually racing, I was on someone’s rear tire and I had someone right on my rear tire. I could not see the rocks in front of me, so I just sat back on my seat and held tight on the handlebars hoping I wouldn’t hit something that would cause me to go flying. It was unreal how fast I was going thru this single track – much faster than I have ever done before. I would just watch the bike tire in front of me and if I saw the bike lurch, I knew to hold on tight.

It certainly was an endurance type of race with all the hills and this played into my hand. I ended up 6th out of 12 in my age group and 62nd out of 161 overall. Oldest Mini ended 12th out of 24 in his age group and 89th out of 161 overall. Mrs. Team BRAZO took 1st place in her age group.

Youngest Mini raced his first MTB race and ended up catching the leader right before the finish line and ended up winning his age group. We were very proud to just have him out on the course trying his hardest and it was very fun watching him trying to get pass the leader – took two laps to get pass him. His Grandma and Grandpa bought him a WORS bike jersey just before the start of his race and he wore the bike shirt in the race and also wore it to school today. I could have just gone and watched him race without even racing and I would have had a GREAT time – he did great!!