One report from the Decorah TT

This is from our good friend Karmen - without her permission - I couldn't help myself - it is a nice report. Look for more in her blog - link on the left of this page. I hope we can get some results posted. I wonder if our superman Rob Houlihan was the?
John


I DID finish - tht was my goal for this year. On a course as slick as this I definitely count that as an accomplishment. It was only a short bit into the race that I knew it was definitely going to be an exercise in perseverance, not speed. At one point I was trying to think of how to best describe the trail today. Greasy? Water on grease? Then add roots with grease and slick rocks. Oh and don’t leave out the climbs. Climbs in Decorah are a challenge with the best of traction. I did alot of pushing my bike up hill. Tried putting it on my shoulder once, but it was such a load with half the course’s mud clunb to my bike that I quickly put it down again. Oh, and then there was the last 1.5 miles that had gotten chewed up by those up front and by the time I got there it was crumbly yet greasy mud off camber along the hillside. I couldn’t get any traction and my back wheel would slide downhill as I tried to ride. Started pushing it again , the crummy part with that was that the mud was tacky enough to stick to my wheel and gum it up so much that it wouldn’t even roll - Aargh! At that point I became just plain frustrated. I had been keeping a this is tough but good challenge and overall fun attitude until that time. Finished in 2:11:?seconds.