My 2006 race season is paralleling the Michigan economy: sluggish with plans to retool and and return to profitability in 2007.The epiphany came at midnight during the 24 Hours of Boyne. I had a decent lead, but felt my motor skills slipping from exhaustion. Riding a handful of laps at Boyne is pure fun. Beyond that it transitions to a struggle. Riding for 24 hours is no longer a challenge and doing the same ol’loop gets old real fast. I need more spice. I’ve been doing this Boyne race year after year. I need try some new races.

24 Hours of Boyne (Boyne Mountain Ski Resort, Michigan)

Did the singlespeed thing again, but basically stopped around midnight when the fun dropped out. Somehow, I only dropped to second place.

Hanson Hills (Grayling, Michigan)

I really enjoyed this race. I’d never ridden at Hanson before and it was just a great Michigan trail, but especially for singlespeeders. The pace was blistering at the start with Niel Scharphorn just laying it down. As he disappeared off the front, I hung on to second place. Third place eventually caught me and we traded spots back and forth. At the massive sand pit before the finish, he totally outsprinted me. Conclusion: he was faster at sprinting and his 29’r tires did better in that sand. Hmmm.

Leadville 100 (Leadville, Colorado)

This was my third time doing Leadville on a singlespeed.  Unfortunately I couldn’t reproduce the results from last year’s victory.  Still I can’t complain about finishing in 9.5 hours under worse conditions.  The Boulevard was a muddy mess and painfully slow. Gear: 32×18