Saint Valentine’s Day Hustle
March 2nd, 2010 | Published in Blargh
Back on the 13th of February, our friend Justin threw a unique race in Menomonie, Wisconsin dubbed the Saint Valentine’s Day Hustle. I awoke to beautiful skies and a hoar’s frost upon every surface in town, rode downtown and took the train out to Scott’s place. While in the neighborhood, I got a hot, fresh cup of awesome from the bearded boys at Angry Catfish, then we loaded up and headed out with my old Bridgestone, Scott’s Pugsley and Orlando’s 1×1.
Scott and I discovered we lived in the Pacific Northwest at the same time and hung out with the same stinky musicians on the I-5 corridor. About an hour later we cruised into Menomonie, got our bikes ready, and headed into the bar. We got our manifests, a map of Lake Menomin with big red numbers indicating where on or near the lake we had to get stickers. Some stops were manned, some had booze, and there were some bonuses hiding in the woods. After lunch and a pre-race beverage, everyone was ready and we struck out onto the snow-covered lake.
I was expecting it to be hard, but not as hard as it was. On open, untouched snow, the going was pretty good. It was easy to keep the wheel straight, but speed was difficult to maintain. On anything that was rutted by cars, there was a nice, speedy line—but a narrow one that was hard to stay in. The worst was where truck ruts had been covered by new snow, as you couldn’t see the ruts coming and they’d throw your wheel around.
I had trouble finding the first couple of stops, but after that, I had people making them obvious. I knew I wasn’t maintaining speed on the open lake with the leaders, but I was doing pretty good and catching up at most stops with the other riders going the same direction. (Some racers went counter-clockwise, including my travelling companions.)
After the second stop, I took off my shell and was down to a jersey over a thermal. Stop number 3 featured my second-favorite pungent liquer, Jeppson’s Malört. At stop 6 I actually put my foot through some thin ice at the beach and soaked a foot. As I was picking up the last sticker, it was pretty clear that at least Scott and Orlando had pulled into the finish line, and maybe some others too. I hiked up the stairs to find out I was 5th place!
We hung out at the bar for a while, did the awards ceremony, and then went for a little walk around town. I grabbed a snack at the Co-op, upon whose board Justin sits, and we went into the coffee shop before the bonfire on the lake. The bonfire was pretty sweet, ignited with a trail of kerosene across the snow.
Overall, a super day out in small-town Wisconsin. Those ‘Sconnies know how to party, thanks a ton!
