12 Hours of Blue Mound, WI Oct 18

[funky-funky-chicken]

The bad news is that I am traveling to southern Wisconsin for an extended weekend with the In-laws this weekend. The good news is that I just found that there is going to be the 12 Hours of Blue Mound going on Saturday, October 18th. I got clearance to go too.

Ideally, I wouldn't really want to enter an endurance event without knowing anything about the course, but what the heck. Anybody else around here ever ridden Blue Mound or planning to go?


http://www.wemseries.com/Bluemound.html

[martini]

Haven't been there to ride, but I've heard good things. Saw your post on MTBR as well. I'd go, and actually was planning on it, but my frame broke, and the Homey Fall Fest is happening this weekend, so that's where I'll be. Good luck, and have fun!

[funky-funky-chicken]

Just got a last minute order in for a larger freewheel (JIC) to be delivered to my In-Laws in time to race on Saturday. I was bummed that I was going to have to miss the HFF, but getting to race SS at Blue Mound sounds like it will be cool. Thanks for the wishes...

[funky-funky-chicken]

So, I show up and the thought starts going through my head: "Which of these things is not like the other..." I'm the odd man out... a bit what I felt like when I first showed up on the MORC message board. The event was part of the Wisconsin Endurance Mountain-bike Series, WEMS. I guess the races were also used as a fund raiser for WORBA which is the Wisconsin version of MORC.
It seemed like everyone knew each other and my initial question about the course was simply met with a chuckle.

I was able to get clearance from my better half to escape from my in-laws (who live only about 50 miles away) for the day. I showed up and made a solo attempt by riding 21 laps of the brutal course on my Phil Wood PISSOFF singlespeed in something like 11 hours, 40 some minutes. There was not enough time to finish lap #22. The winner of the solo finished 23 laps. I am not sure what the official mileage was, some said that it was 5 1/2, others said 7. Either way, must have been at least a cool hundo or so… I only saw two other guys on SS…

Blue Mounds trail is carved into the grounds of the state park. It's mostly technical single-track with some apparently cross country ski course based double track on some long steady climbs. (Sound familiar?) The double track was mostly very loose gravel which meant an opportunity for me to walk mostly. There were times when I questioned whether I chose the right gearing, and considered changing, but stuck with a 39x20. It was fast through the single-track and technical stuff. Even having walked both major gravel climbs, my lap times were still consistently around 30 minutes.

They kept the trails open the public during the event informing and asking riders to yield to racers. The course was very rocky and had enough interesting challenges to keep your attention for the duration of the day. There are rocks sticking out of the trail around seemingly every corner. These aren't your normal rounded rock like you see at Lebanon Hills. They're sticking up out of the ground and sharp, pointy, eat your tires, and give you pinch-flat kind of rocks. There are some great obstacles to ride: Rocks, tight blind corners, log piles, rock drops, rock gardens, narrow tree passes, and did I mention more rocks.

The weather was fantastic and made for a very fun event! I was surprised at the small turnout… I would guess maybe only about 40 people total or so. During the day’s time to think, I wondered to myself, could there be an event like this at Lebanon Hills? Some type of solo or duo endurance event would be great to have locally other than the 24Hours of Afton.

I would suggest if you are ever in the neighborhood, you check out Blue Mounds State Park in Wisconsin. You’ll need a Wisconsin State Park Pass ($30 annual or $5 daily) and a State Trail Pass ($10 annual or $3 daily.) There is a nice campground on site, and could make for a great weekend get-away mountain bike weekend.

[martini]

NIce job Ken! Sounds like a fun place to ride. I'll have to hit it up the next time I'm down in Viroqua. An event like this would be VERY fun at Lebanon. Challenging for sure. We had a 12 Hr here at MtKato this past summer that was very successful as well. I love these endurance type of events even more so than normal "racing". I'd love to see a series similar to Wicso. Maybe we can team up with them? HMMMMMM.....