Ken Woods Road Race

This past Saturday was the Ken Woods road race. Last year it was 25 degrees, 25 mile an hour winds with 40 mile an hour gusts. This year there was threat of bad weather—but nothing like last year and nothing happened.

I got there early to help out Mike D on chip timing. Once wave 1 started I jumped in the car with Kristy and Jen to checkout the course and how the racers were doing.

Ken Woods this year was also a collegiate race so there were 40 more racers than expected. The Gophers had about 30 racers—but I was excited to see the Fighting Sioux with 7 racers including one women! I’ll have to see if they can get me a jersey.

Five out of seven hellions were at the race. We hashed out a plan in the parking lot before the race—all tentative of course you never know what’s going to happen out there. There were 18 women in our category, 22 if you count the 40+ who started with us.

Turn one—no issues. I stayed on my teammates wheel the entire time. The paced picked up a bit. Points (Amy) went to the front and picked up the pace she came back and said “Girl, I needed to do that. Now I’m warmed up.” I was just hoping she didn’t push herself too much.

Turn two—OC (Jackie) went to the front. I knew exactly what was going to happen. She was going to pull her OC move—downhill turn without touching her breaks. Now, the girls in my category including myself are too chicken to do such a move. OC tore the group apart. I had to pedal hard and fast to catch-up with the group. Points and Jen were not so lucky—we lost them on that corner.

Turn three—still with the group. We had a nice downhill and then one significant hill on this stretch. The downhills were extremely slow—I had to ride my breaks down the hills because I was blocked in between Sketchy 1 and Sketchy 2—man were those girls driving me crazy! Right before the start of the climb I pulled up next to Kristy and said “This is where the fun is going to start.” Nothing! No one attacked on the hill.

OC was in the front for most of the race but came back after the hill. I told her good job, she knew a teammate was on her wheel, but wasn’t sure who, she said “Points, get the hell up there.” I said, “we lost points a long time ago.” She paused for a while then said “Madone, get the hell up there.” Not yet.

We took the final turn—one mile of pure climbing, similar to the Smith bridge in St. Paul, all of the girls were out of their saddles dancing on the pedals. I picked up some ground to the middle of the pack, but thought I would be in trouble if they stayed out the saddle. Then…they sat down. Hallelujah!! I did a few click-clicks of my gears put my head down and was off. Jay and Dan from Silver Cycling were behind our pace car—they pulled around and yelled at me while I was going up the hill. It was more pain then glee, but they said I looked at them and started laughing like I had this thing in the bag.

I noticed Sketchy 2 was riding my wheel and I was not going to let her benefit from my labor. I let her ride it for a few more yards then pulled back behinder her. We were sitting in 4/5 place. Once I could see the line I knew I had to give it my all. I did a few click-clicks into a higher gear, went into my drops stood up and started pounding away on the peddles. I passed Sketchy 2, then the girl in 3rd. I saw the girl in 2nd but started to run out of juice. 3rd was ok with me!

I thought it was strange that Dano’s mom was yelling at me at the finishline. Thankfully I didn’t let-up because once I crossed the line I realized she wasn’t yelling at me—Dano was right on my tail.

For my win I got socks and ROY points. I’ll take the points.