Wilderness 101

THE FRESH AIR FUND - The Wilderness 101 has a soft spot in my heart as it is the first mountain bike race I ever rode and for reasons unknown to me I use it as my annual fund raising ride. This year the charity of choice was the Fresh Air Fund. To help out I recruited 2 coworkers to come down and join the fun, one of them having never been on a mountain bike before. Once again the gods had turned up the heat and humidity for the race (conditions I detest) and it was shaping up to be no fun, that was until one of my mates got a bit bold on a descent, flatted and went over the bars into the deep weeds. Unhurt and unable to muster the knowledge to change a flat meant it was time to get going or bail out as I was feeling the effects of too much training and racing over the winter. Despite bending a rotor at 75 miles and having to remove the rear brake, I managed to come home 24th in single speed with a new PR and along with my coworkers raised over $7000 for the kids to go out and have fun in the country......all in all a successful race!