Fat Bike Birkie:
I’m super grateful to my husband Eric for putting up with
this fat bike thing all winter, and especially for getting us the Bavarian
Suite at Garmisch- fancy digs for the Fat Bike Birkie! And if you have never
done a ski, bike, or running race up in the Cable/Hayward, WI area, you must
go. These are the best run races you will ever find, with the friendliest
volunteers on the planet. Sign up, because the secret is out and these races
sell out. Link is here:
I aimed high for the Fat Bike Birkie, wanting to hit the
podium. I also set that goal before they announced it was a national
championship, and that brought out serious talent from the mountain biking
community. Guess what--- I still hit the podium, AND I met some really awesome
women who race bikes really fast- like Danielle Musto, whose awesome blog
convinced me to buy a fat bike in the first place. Link here-
Race day was one of those rare, perfect days when I set a
race strategy and executed it exactly as planned and it worked beautifully. The
neutral start predictably wasn’t neutral. Someone crashed in front of me and as
I Houdini’ed around it like the roadie I am, others saw it and took off- FAST.
I tucked in with big, fast dudes and took the first 20-30 minutes of the race
at full gas, surfing to the fastest dudes I could keep up with. I cooled it to a
high tempo pace till the halfway point. I love racing with men, especially big
ones. I could tuck in behind them where they shielded me from all wind and
hardly knew I was there, then mercilessly pop them on the climbs and search for
the next, even stronger victim. It was going well.
At the halfway point the gal in 6th place (Patti Schmidt)
saw me coming up. She was the only woman I saw after about 1/4 of the race.
After she saw me she sped up but I caught on, and we spent a while beating the
crap out of each other. Eventually we had a steep climb, my tires slipped and I
had to run it, and I lost enough time that Patti found a couple dudes up the
way and got away. Darn.
With about 30 minutes left the race was a net downhill. I
TT’ed in a steady, hard effort. It was broken up by one gnarly hairpin turn
that I took a little too fast, so I had to powerslide it with my inside foot
down, slinging snow off my tires like an 8-year old. The spectators loved it, I
did too. Especially since I did not fall. I pressed on, emptying the tank, picking
dudes off. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Looked back with 1/2 mile to go, to see all 5 of
those dudes working together to catch me. I was red-lined but their train
shattered after they caught me and I passed 4 of them before the finish by
sprinting till I nearly blacked out just because I could. Yup.
Here's a photo:
I finished 7th woman overall, 3rd age 40-50... as a roadie
party-crasher from Chicago who showed up on a stock Surly Pugsley. Best exchange: “Where
do you train?” –“In my living room”. Mountain bikers are super friendly though. The gals who finished near
me were telling me about races and rides I should do, “Yeah it’s a hundred
miler in Michigan- you can just sleep on my couch, just friend me on facebook…”
That is what I love about bike racing, and it’s magnified 10-fold in the
mountain biking community.
Another highlight was having a beer and
the largest bratwurst I have ever seen after the race. Yes- you got that right,
largest bratwurst I have ever seen. Remember I am from Wisconsin. It was
too obscene to post a picture on a public blog so you will just have to do the
race next year and get your own brat.
Here’s a photo of me on the podium for women 40-50 years
old. The gal on the top step is Rebecca Rusch, the Queen of Pain!
I won a beer glass.
After the podium, Rebecca shook my hand. She looked me in
the eye and said, “You’re going to do this now, right?” referring to racing fat
bikes and mountain bikes. I stared at her like a fish, with
my mouth and eyes wide open. We all know the answer to her question.
