Photography by: Kat

The second WEMS race this year was up in LaGrange Wisconsin in Kettle Moraine State Park.  This trail system is probably the one I ride the most and was looking foward to racing some fast miles on the course.  Cale and I rode medeocarly the entire day.  Neither of us were really feeling on.  We took 2nd of 8 teams.  We did not get lapped.  But I did have probably the worst lap of my life.  I finished the first lap overall in first place, but I took 3 wrong turns and fell off my bike three times.  The dirt was still damp from some rain and the dew and I was just pushing the envelope as hard as i could. This ended up being way too hard for some of the turns and it really set a rhythem for me all day long.  And once I got out of the rhythem of falling off my bike, I was just too tired to really fight back and my lap times got longer and longer.  Overall though we did well and we are still leading the series.

All day though I had a really tough time finding a flow to the trail.  The fast sections were great, but then there would all of the sudden be a sharp turn and you had to slam on the brakes.  And all the rocks on the climbs made them killer.  This was the first time since i have started riding the rigid 29er that I wish I had gears and suspension.  !2 hours at Blue mound is the next race Cale and I are racing on July 7th.  I think i will be riding gears there.....

It was also nice to push myself, from a cold start for 50 minutes.  I am really gaining confidence in how my cyclocross season will turn out this year.  If I am super duper aggressive about making it to races, so far, without the western michigan schedule there are 20 races I can make.