2018 was quite the year to remember in some aspects and quite the year to forget in other apects. Did you remember that 2018 was a winter olympic year? That's right, almost a year ago, winter olympics were held in Pyongyang, South Korea. Sometimes the year seems so long that we don't remember milestone events like that. In the Applen household though, the year flew by. Emily deployed and is almost back, the school year is flying by and the 2018-2019 winter cannot make-up it's mind if it will show up or not. On the bike racing side of things, a lot of stuff to report there. Big races this year included Lutsen 99'er, Chequamegon Fate Tire 40 and Icemean Cometh. Not a lot of racing days on that calendar last year, but the quality made up for it. Lutson was a milestone event as Dan and I went up there with the families raced it and qualified for Leadville this year. Dan was ahead of me most of the race after I was left in a chase group for slowing to go around a puddle that I had no idea how deep it was. Basically picture a small lake stretching across double track logging trail. Since it was so early in the race, took it a bit conservative. I ended up finishing up 15 minutes behind him at 6:17 for the 96 miles. Awesome event, it was super dry last year for this race, pretty uncommon. Also finished just ahead of a couple of the Apex cycling guys like Chris Stevens and Thomas Olek, both fresh off of going 1-2 at State Gravel Champs the week prior. Fitness was dialed in and this was one of the best MTN bike races I a have done. Dan and I hope to be back this year to improve our starting spot for Leadville since it is a qualifier. Our U.S. Military Team deal on Schwalbe tires made for awesome traction and performance!

After this, Emily headed out the door for deployment a few months later and I was prepping for Chequamegon Fat Tire. In terms of intensity, this race is more like a crit compared to an endurance event like Lutsen. At only 42 miles or something like that, this race featured lots of gravel and sandy trails. The drive up there to Hayward saw lots of rain and a torrential downpour an hour before the race. The race course contained giant puddles every mile or mile and a half. Some were as deep as the bottom bracket. This race I had a couple instances of my chain jamming (I know, I should convert to 1X, lol), so I had to stop and fix that, the first of which happened a couple miles into the race on the first fairly large climb. LOTS and LOTS of racers went by as I was clearly on the struggle bus with that. Anyway, all disgruntled feelings went aside as we approached and climbed Pirate Hill. Pic below shows the rum shot going down very well. First time at Cheq and first time having a shot of rum on a bike ride. Have to say I was impressed. It went down smooth and did give me a little kick to the finish. In fact it was delicious!!! The pirate signs reading "Surrender the Booty" gave an added morale boost too. Finished that race around 2 hours 40 mins or something like that. Not the best showing, but very fun race. Intense and fast! Pictures below of from Pirate Hill. Goal is to make a return to northern WI for this event! Not for the rum though, duh ;)

Rounding out the race season was Iceman Cometh. A whirlwind trip to western MI with Dan. We drove to his house ins Appleton, WI on a Thur, stayed the night, drove to MI on Friday, raced Saturday and then drove back to his house that same day, leaving only the leg back to Rochester left for Friday. Trust me, it was worth it. I would of like to have had a better starting spot for Iceman though. While Dan and another teammate of ours, Jason Barnes started in the first five waves, I was not until like wave 30 or something like that. Since it was the first time doing this race, I was way back there yo! This also meant I was passing people the entire race. The bike handled superbly, no jammed chain and the Schwalbe tires were amazing. Again, just like Lutsen, we lucked out with dry and fast conditions. I had to do a lot of off piste passing as the course was full of racers from other waves ahead of me. I got pretty comfortable riding and passing in the thick stuff. The finish was awesome as you crisscross and weave through single track amongst the roaring and drunk crowd stopping the clock at 2 hours and 2 minutes. Should be good enough for starting in a top 5 wave later this November. I was trying to catch Dan, he finished 10 mins ahead of me. A huge thanks to Jason and his wife for letting us stay there along with my kids I brought with me. What kind of dad drags their kids to bike races? LOL

One of the descents at Iceman, perhaps the only time I was not trying to or passing anyone. 

Now on to Leadville as the main event for 2019. Some warmup races feature before that such as Ragnorak 105 in April, Lutsen again in June and probably have a weekend camp at Dan's cabin. After all it is a good place for drinking espresso and craft beer. See ya on the trail! Get that buckle!