2010 Tree Farm Relay: Mud!

Today was the 2010 Tree Farm Relay, a quite-nice relay race in Novi’s Lakeshore Park. I was on a team with Martin, Nick, and Bill, with my lap being the third out of us four (Martin: 1, Nick: 2, Me: 3, Bill: 4). Our team, Heck’s Angles, came in 17^th out of 36 (Sport Men results), a middle of the pack standing.

It had been raining all morning and throughout the start of the race, but with the rain letting up just before my lap the light rainy mud began drying, smearing the entire course with peanut butter-like goo. Prior laps had a much thinner, rain-addled mud left on bikes, and the later laps had denser mud that mostly just packed into people’s tires and made things slick. Mine packed into the entire drivetrain, clogging the chain and filling the bottom bracket, adding a good five pounds to the bike. This slowed everything down, yet despite it the race was still fun.

While riding I didn’t have any real mechanical problems, but my rear wheel was starting to slip a bit in the dropouts, causing my rear tire to just barely begin rubbing a chain stay at the end of the lap. More thankfully last night’s replacement of the fork and brakes didn’t cause any problems and the new brakes performed as hoped (and became bedded in nicely) and the air fork did it’s job. I think the fork may need a bit more air for me, but it was otherwise quite a bit nicer than the super-steep rigid fork.

After the race and at Marty’s suggestion I took a quick dip in Walled Lake to clean myself off, then settled in for a few pints of the Dark Horse, Original Gravity, and Liberty Street (local, tasty, Michigan) beer available on site.

I’m looking forward to seeing some other people’s photos of the race, particularly as someone got one of me going into the crater, blue liquor shot in hand (they are obligatory and handed out mid-course, you know) and I’d like to see how it came out. In the mean time, here’s some select photos that I took today:

· Me standing with my bike right after finishing my lap at the 2010 Tree Farm Relay as part of team “Heck’s Angles”.
· Other Dave and Hodaddy (Joe Foy) immediately after Joe finished his lap.
· Nick’s bike received only a light spray of mud on the second lap.
· My bike caked with mud from the third lap, as the trail was drying out.
· Seat stay bridge and seatpost caked with pudding-like mud.
· Detail of the mud and grass caked bottom bracket before washing it off.
· Detail of my bottom bracket after removing the large chunks of mud.
· Nick hosing off his bike to remove the mud from it.
· While riding the rear dropouts slipped slightly and at the end I was getting some tire rub.
· In Walled Lake some people demonstrate the wrong way to wash a bike. I feel bad for the hubs and bottom bracket.
· Looking through the finish line, including the bamboo gate made by Loren.

A good time was had by all, except for maybe the rider who broke a derailleur (or something similar) and schluffed back to the finish line. He handed off his lei (the batons for this race) to his team mate, then angrily shoved/threw his bike only to have the front wheel dig in and make the bike circle around to hit his team mate right as he was setting out.