UP

The UP is truly beautiful – lush.  I traveled north with my family and we camped outside Marquette so that I could race at Superior Bike Fest. 

The Friday night crit was a challenging course that began with a descent and a turn.  Then, at supersonic speeds we were to navigate through 7 more corners and complete the loop with a moderately aggressive climb.  Repeat for infinity.  One woman after the race pulled me aside and said that she liked me best because I was the only one smiling.   I’ll take it.

Later that night there was a little confusion around the campfire as the neighbors called out, “BEAR!
BEAR!”.   I grabbed my youngest and most tender kid and froze.  As it turns out, they had named their shaggy mutt – Bear.

So, Saturday AM, I was really ready for some road racing.  I wanted to GO.  After a neutral roll out for 2 miles through the town, we were free.  The terrain had its fair share of long morale-busting climbs.  This was for me.   I dug in on the very first one.  There was someone dressed like a devil, complete with horns and a cape, on the side of the road.  I am not sure what that was about.   As we passed him, he taunted, “ Whoa Ladies…the one in the front is going strong and she is still in her BIG ring.”  I smiled an evil grin this time.

There were attacks, but nothing seemed to split the pack.  Until around 40 miles, a rider crashed and that brought down large part of the pack, including myself.  This was my first road crash experience and my bike took it harder than I did.   It was out of the race.  One woman went to the hospital; I have heard that she is OK.  Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt.

The very kind support guy from the local ski patrol told me to hop in the pick-up with his two kids, ages 5 and 8.  They edged away from me.  I was a bit gory.   One of the kids, concerned and wanting to help, told me that I was probably gonna need a band-aid.  I had a box seat to the race now.  The boys were full of questions about the teams and the bikes and wanted to know what a sprint was.   I gave the play by play.  We sung silly songs and we took turns thinking about what kind of sandwich we would eat once we were back in Marquette.  What exactly is a Beef-A-Roo anyway?  When we crossed the finished, I thanked them for their help and then they thanked me for making the support ride more fun.  Although the Fest did not go exactly according to plan, I had fun too.