One Fucking Speed!

About a year and a half ago (Jan 2014) the shock on my Specialized Epic died and I had to send it back to Specialized to be serviced.  That meant I was forced to ride my single speed bike which had been bought years before, rode for a little while, and pretty much ignored.  It was ignored because a single speed is not a lazy persons bike.  It takes effort to swap gears and maintain and takes effort to ride.  Well with no other option, I started to ride it again and pretty much fell in love my my single speed.  Over the next months I rode it exclusively, even after I got my Epic back.

One this day over a year ago I raced my Single Speed for the first time and GOT MY ASS KICKED by my single speed and by everyone else in the SS Open class.

I wish I could point you to the race report from that race but it accidentally was deleted when I killed my MFP account a while back.  But I can give you an idea of what happened.

The race was 4 short laps at Erwin park with a nice start on the hilly paved road in the park.  The SS group did the same distance as the Advanced Group (CAT2) and I had never raced in the CAT2 group ever!  Since it was my first race I didn't gear my bike correctly and went out way to hard.  By the end of the 3rd lap I was toast and my back was killing me.  The 4th lap was a sufferfest and I am pretty sure only ONE racer (out of all the categories) finished behind me.  My back was cramping so bad I could not bend over.  It was beyond humbling and humiliating.  I had never done that badly in a race EVER.

You can check out the race here on Stava:
MTB - Lone Star XC Erwin Park Race (SS Open)

AND here I am a year later getting ready for a 12 hour race on my SS.  I am pretty sure I am about to get another dose of humility, pain, and suffering.  You know what, I like to dive in and test my limits.  I want to know if something is possible and it doesn't kill me to fail.  I learn from my failures and push forward.  I know people that would tell me not to do this race because I have only been racing my SS for a year and other that would tell me I haven't trained enough.  And they are probably right but I am still going to do it.