The weekend brought a trip deep into the heart of our western Wisconsin bike racing region. But rather than racing, I was up in the northwest part of the state with a few other WiSport riders volunteering at the water/banana/assistance station at the 31.8K mark of the American Birkebeiner.

The cross country ski race -- in it’s 35th edition in 2008 -- is a hailed as one of the largest and one of the longest XC ski races in North American coming in around 51K in total distance from Cable to Hayward, Wisc.

For about 6 hours on Saturday, I and the other volunteers handed out cups of water, Cliff Shots energy drink and bananas to the 5,000+ skiers in the event. It was pretty gratifying hearing over and over “Thanks for being here” and “There wouldn't be a race without you.”

We were at “The Gravel Pit” water station at 31.8K.

Video of the stop can be found here: http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t127/Porkchopwi/?action=view&current=BIRKE.flv

Frankly, it was pretty fun handing drinks up to other endurance athletes (of all abilities, ages and shapes), and of course seeing the elite racers go through early in the day. The top racers came though at a good clip in what many veterans said was the biggest front pack they have ever seen at that point in the race.

The winner was Ivan Babikov with a time of 2:07:08, according to race results posted on the Birke site, www.birke.com.

Jamie Haag probably said it best in pointing out this event allowed both of us to give something back for the volunteers that make our WiSport (and other series) possible every week during the spring and summer.

Not only did we get to a see of our fellow riders at the volunteer station (Avery Dahl, the Johnson Boys to name just a few), we also saw a few riders competing (Gerry Hansen, Andrea Potyondy-Smith and Kevin Syth). We probably saw other people we knew too and just didn't know it (a lot of people all looked the same after a while).

Summer seemed a long way away this weekend as Jamie and I used a snowmobile to get to and from the race site -- he drove and I rode on the back -- and we crossed over long stretches of frozen lakes that yield incredibly large fish in the summer (at least according to all the mounted fish in each of the bars/restaurants we stopped in that ALL had some oversized Northern or Muskie on the walls... including the alleged World Record Muskie -- 68(?) pounds at the Moccasin Bar in downtown Hayward).

I got a good 2.5 hour spin in on Friday before leaving for Hayward and will get in some time on the spin bike tonight. Saturday was a nice day off the bike and a fun event (the Birke) to be part of, even if it was just a small part.

Things that mean spring will be here soon:

A) February is more than half over

B) The Tour of California starts today

C) The Daytona 500 is today

D) It’s about 2 months to the first event in the WiSport calendar (A few other races in Iowa, Ill. and Wisc. are scheduled for late March and early April).

Things that make spring seem a long way away

A) A winter storm warning until midnight today (Sunday) with 10+ inches of snow expected

B) A lot of snow already on the ground.

Last year we took to the roads for the first time on March 25 (after waiting for a rain or two to wash some of the salt and crap off the tarmac). I sure hope we’re outside by that time again this year but at this pace it sure seems like winter is going to last longer than it has the last few years.

Oh yeah, I’ve officially joined the 35-39 age group for racing.