Iola open SS

Iola,WI
WORS #1 Iola Bump & Jump Sunday May 10, 2009
by: Tom Kapanke

By Tom Kapanke
May 17 2009

Sunday morning came early as I had to work until 2a.m. Made the road trip with Roger and Kevy from LaCrosse. Made it to Iola with a couple hours to register and warm up. Being my first WORS race on a single speed and first time at the course, I was really second guessing the gear choice. Like it or not, 34X18 was going to be it. Saw quite a few METAL heads at the start line. How cool to be a part of this movement. At the word go we went from pre race jitters to red line in about 6 seconds. Feeling pretty good the first half lap trying to sit somewhere in the front of the pack. Then about 100 feet in the singletrack someone went down a few guys ahead of me. It caused a little pile up, and we frantically tried to get around it. Second lap was similar to the first trying to pass when I could and find the zone. Third and fourth lap opened up a little bit and I was feeling pretty good so I decided to pick up the pace. I didn’t have anyone behind me, but I didn’t see anyone ahead of me either. Strange.  I felt like I was making up time and was pushing the corners. With a quarter lap to go I came into one a little hot and lost my front wheel. Get up, shake it off, and roll in for a not too satisfying 10th in the open SS class. My friend Kevy rolled in 5th. Nice work. Main objective was to learn something about single speed racing and will hopefully be able to remember next time. Congrats to all the T6 riders for representing and going hard.