John's story: Bear 100

BaseCamp athlete John Keepers shared his experience at the 2026 Bear 100 bike race in Wisconsin.

Fun race in the Nicolet Forest of northern Wisconsin. 1-1/2 hrs from home so nice to have a local race. It was 21 deg F driving over, so Alex Sundstrom and I were a little worried about attire. Still not warm enough to just wear BaseCamp kits. In the warmup, I froze my fingers off, so I stuck with insulated gloves. No hills, some chunky gravel, a 3-mile single track route in the middle but mostly decent gravel. 

This was the 2nd race I did with the Lauf I carbon-fiber repaired the right seat stay. In the last two races it has taken a pretty good beating, so it's good to go. This was a B race for me, but I have no idea what that means…maybe no taper. Relatively flat course with no hills to pound up. I rode in groups pretty much the whole race. Some wanted to take a lot of pulls, so I did not argue. TSS/hr was down to 59, which was just fine. I don't think my legs could have handled much more. Finished 2/23 for the Aged and Infirm.