Holy smokes, I podiumed! Maine Sport Turkey cross

My pentultimate race of the season.  Was not sure if I was going to do this local-ish race in Maine, or head down to Nashua NH for a bigger race.  The Shedd park race in Nashua would have given me the chance to do two, or god forbid even three races, while the Maine race would limit me to one.  In the end, I decided to support a local promoter, and do a smaller low-key race rather than line up against 100 racers in another big field.

There was an A group and a B group.  Since I've been finishing in the back of the pack of the cat 4/5, I figured I would be a solid B.  I was surprised when the Cross Results race predictor favored me to finish first in the Bs!

I was a bit dismayed to see that most of the other racers in the Bs had never raced before :/  But I was signed up, so...

Woke up super early, and arrived in plenty of time for warm up.  Light rain, and rain overnight, so it was pretty wet...Was one of the first to arrive, the race was held at a bike/ski store, and the doors were still closed.  While I got myself organized, they opened, so I grabbed a number, pinned it and started on the course.  Went with 24 lbs front and 27 rear, which is much lower than I have ever run, but figured that the ground was super wet and soft, and there was not much danger of bottoming out.  This proved true, I never touched rim or felt I had too little air.

After a 1/2 hour of warm up, the A group lined up.  A few of the other Bs commented that they thought I could have ridden with the As.  Looking at the race predictor, I was favored to finish in the middle of that pack, so that probably would have been a better choice had I known ahead of time.

The A riders took off, and did 15 minutes then the Bs lined up.  I was in a pack of soccer moms, 10 year olds, and a couple of beer bellies.  And one skinny guy who looked like he knew what he was doing.  I saw him letting air out of his tubular tires at the line, and knew I would have some competition.

I got the holeshot, no surprise, and kept it for a lap an a half.  Skinny dude was sitting on my wheel, and once he decided to shoot by, I didn't see him for the rest of the race.  Luckily, I lapped a few of my fellow Bs before the leader of that As lapped me.  (It is pretty rare that I lap a rider in a race).  (It did not feel terribly good).

The course did a lot of back and forth loops around the shop, a pretty tight course.  Lots of muddy sections.

Peanut, peanut butter... MUDD

The course was a pretty tight set of back and forth loops around the shop, much of it surrounding a pond.

The course also rode up the sidewalk up to the shop front door, and back across to the side door, with a few stone steps along the way..

And a section across the dock, and up the stairs.  This section was pretty hairball, with soaking wet wood covered with a veneer of mud...

This feature was part of the course during warm up, but got pulled during the B race.  I think they wanted to make it easier, though it was really easy to just roll over these, no need to dismount.

Short laps, I think about 5-6 minutes, so we got 5 laps in for a 30 minute race I think.

It was a fun race.  I raced pretty hard though maybe not all out.  No heart rate monitor, so I can't really tell for sure.  With out dozens of riders breathing down my neck like most races, I was not as motivated to go at 100%.  Though I was getting a pretty good workout in.

Had time to clean up and put on dry clothes, then we had the finishers ceremony.  The store owner/ race organized brought out a pile of thanksgiving food to give out as prizes.  6 turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce, squashes, etc.

The kids race winners picked first, they both wanted squashes :)  The As picked a mix of stuff, but there were a few vegetarians, so when they let Bs pick prizes, I was second, and scored a turkey!

It was a good race.  Not the kind of power course I favor, even if it had been dry.  Not super technical, either.  I'd do it again, but line up in the A group next year, hopefully pull skinny dude up there with me and leave the B group to the beginners.

I'm no Tom Boonen, but I do my best...

Orchard Cross at Applecrest Farm

I have been blowing this blog off for a while.  Busy with moving to a new home/state, cross racing work, etc.  It was a good outlet and I should try to keep it up.  Anyway...

So I did another cyclocross bike race this weekend, as I have been every weekend or two since September.  This one was really fun, and prompted me to post something to share.

Drove down to South Hampton NH, about an hour and a half away.  Pleasant drive though my old Ipod crashed and would not play music, as happens when I leave it in the car on a cold night.

Got to the event plenty early.  Was there at 8:00 even though my race was not until 10:30.  That gave me time for a lap on the course before the first race, another afterward, and half a lap just before the third.  A good solid warm up!  We did not get the promised deluge (that is coming tonight) so the course was was a bit wet due to this week's rain, but not really muddy or exceptionally mucky.  Mostly just wet or damp grass, with a few short sections of medium density mud. 

Course was a dirt (grass) track date My kind of riding!  No run up, no sand pit, not many technical sections.  Just let em rip!

There was one section of pump track, which was fun.  This is where most of the spectators hung out, to see the excitement.  A bunch of single jumps and a double...

A couple of mini-berms

Another set of single/doubles...

And then a full on BMX style berm

This was followed by an slight uphill track back, then a downhill on a smaller set of whoop-de-doos.  You could ride down this section no brakes if you were daring, but it was like hanging on to the back of a bucking bronco as your bike rode up and back down.

More riding through grass around the apple orchard and through the raspberry bushes back to the start.  We did 5 laps, and even though I was behind the middle of the field, I didn't get passed by the leaders, which is pretty good!

Had an awesome race, placed 23/41, which is the best results I have had so far this year.  And I had a ton of fun, which was the important part.

There were a few races I could have done today.  I decided last minute that rather than do two serious races, I would do the "Costume Race" as my second :)  I didn't have a costume ready, but at the last minute, I did some internet searching and came up with a brainstorm!  Spent 5 minutes cutting up a box, 5 minutes gluing, and 10 minutes painting, and lo and behold, I was LEGO MAN!!!

There must have been 40-50 folks lined up in costume.  Gumby/pokey, prom queens, monsters, maine lobsters and lobster fisherman/women, lots of great costumes!

This guy probably took the cake for going all in, though he struggled to keep the bike moving later in the race.

The costume race was a mellow affair, not scored and not really a race.  I moved at a decent pace to get a workout in, and passed a few riders, making sure that it was OK if I went by them first.

2017 cyclocross nationals

I made the trip down to lovely Hartford, CT for Cyclocross nationals this year.

Due to a knee injury, I did not get much CX racing in this year.  The goal was to upgrade to Cat 3, a stretch goal in any case.  More like a stretch-armstrong goal, really...

So I registered for the 40-49 non-championship race.  I would not be racing for a medal, but that was just fine.

My race didn't start until 2:30 pm, which was a huge change.  Normally I need to leave the house around 6am for an 8am start.  A later start sounded great!  Arrived and had a full hour to warm up, which was really nice.  I briefly considered tire pressure, but quickly realized that traction today was going to be a fairy tale,  or a pipe dream and just went with 40 PSI.  The mud was super deep, wheel sucking muck, and really slow, with quite a bit of walking terrain that if it were dry, would be a simple ride.

Two laps of warm up on a 2 mile course took me around 50 minutes.  Holy slow going, batman!  After the pre-ride, I went in and got my race numbers.  Another rider noticed my 20/20 cycling kit, and we chatted about Seattle for a bit.  She was out to race the non-championship on the same day, and was planning on racing the U23 race on sunday!  Turns out she knows Keith, and is a client of his.  It was nice to have someone to talk to for a bit.  

I had 2 hours to kill before the race, so I went out in search of a power washer.  After a bit, I found an auto car wash, and hosed down the bike.  It was destined to get filthy within the first minute, but I thought it would be nice to start clean.  I didn't realize they had a spray wash at the race course for us to use...

Before

After

I'll say those Mud Shovel Fenders didn't look pro.  But I sure stayed warm and dry through 2 hours of warm up and racing.  So, IMO I was smarter than everyone else who "looked cool" :)

Drove around Hartford for a bit finding my way back.  Not really too impressed, no disrespect to Hartfordians...

Changed some clothes, grabbed some warm gloves, and rode back up 5 stories of ramps, across the bridge, and back down to the race course.  They were calling up numbers one at a time, and with 130 registered starters, this took quite a while.  I jumped around to keep warm.  I missed my call up, and was slotted in the last 4 riders, but that was fine as that is exactly where I expected to finish ;)

We went off, and a group of 6 or so of us hung out in the back.  As we had gotten about another half inch of rain since the morning, things got even more muck and slippery.  As expected, I estimate I was only riding about 60% of the course.

Early in the course, there was a long traverse.  You could either climb up first, or last.  It seemed like the lower track was better, though still unrideable.  I did see a few try, but everyone was relegated to pushing.  

After this, there was a decent, also known as the "Hartford Slip-and-Slide: ;)  Many a chamois was ruined here...

This was followed by a climb back up the grade...

I was really thinking crampons would have been a better footware choice than MTB shoes with toe spikes up that.  Loose grass covered with dirt left us making 4 steps for every 2 of upward progress.

I was able to avoid wiping out by gingerly picking my way down the right side barrier tape.  It helped that I was in no rush to get down, I guess.

Although it was tough going, I was enjoying myself for the first lap.  I entertained myself by heckling my fellow riders and the few spectators.  Some of my better lines:

"I'm not sure why we have these pedals on these bikes.  We're sure not using them today!"

"Brakes, who needs em?"  After hitting my brakes on a decent to no avail, I just let it rip.  Once I hit the mud puddle at the bottom, I came to a quick stop.

"OMG, I just hit 12 MPH"  At the bottom of that slope.

"I think I saw a lost bike in the bottom of that puddle.  No sign of the rider"

"You know, someone told me there would be a bike race here today, not a bike-pushing contest."

There were a few short paved sections, where I got a bit of acceleration.

I may have actually gotten into the 21 cog for 10 pedal strokes here.  Whoa!

Just as I approached the finish, I got lapped by Adam Myerson, an ex-pro, and one of the best Elite riders in New England, who just retired.  I thought that might happen, but hoped to hold him off.  I lost my bet by about 300 meters though.  Thankfully?? the officials did not pull me out, and let me finish my race.

To put it into perspective, it took me 24 minutes to do a lap that took a PRO 12 minutes to do.  Not saying that he is twice as good as me or anything ;)  Just that he is much faster...

The second lap was a real struggle.  It was truly miserable.  Pushing a 34/25 though this was worse than kicking up Mont Ventoux in a 34/27.  It was right up there with climbing the col du Glandon in terms of awful things I have done on a bike.  But I kept on, with no site of the riders before me, and the one behind me back by a bit.

With about 1/4 mile to go, my bike was so bogged down.  I pulled off a brick of mud the size of my fist off of the rear brake bridge.  The front brakes were so clogged, the bike was doing an endo as I pushed it, unless I kept my other hand pushing down on the seat.  After what seemed like forever, I got to the "fast" part of the course nearing the finish line.  The rider behind me pushed just ahead, and there was no way I was going to close any gap.  He crossed the line about 10 bike lengths up, good for him.

After the race, I rode over to the slip and slide to see some carnage.  Got a few shots, but none as good as that video.  Saw a few who were actually able to ride it!  But that was less than one in ten.

A few pithy quotes from the peanut gallery:

"Congratulations, you're now riding a single speed!"  After a rider dragged his bike and rear shift lever though the mud from the top to the very bottom

"I should come back with PVC sheets to save these poor guys' $140 bib shorts"

"The Russian judge gives a 8.4"

I ran into a guy who was riding a Van Dessel Full Tilt Boogie, which is the bike I am building up, and will finish one of these days.  It turns out he has a child who works for Van Dessel, so we chatted about bikes, and how much we like the company for a bit.  

After a bit, I was cold and had had enough.  I rode back, and found the bike wash station.  I ran into the fellow who had passed me at the end, and we congratulated each other.  He said "we actually beat someone"  Turns out he finished 88 and myself 89, out of 96 starters.  We all beat the 25 riders who signed up, but didn't bother to show

DFL>DNF>DNS.  Words to live by!

Got home, grabbed a meatball sub and salad on the way.  Ate a delicious dinner, accompanied by a Pirate Ale which had been ageing for a year.

I'm not certain the ageing improved this beer; it's not something I drink with any frequency, so I don't have any comparison.

All in all it was a great race.  Type two fun at times, but I did enjoy myself, and I am super glad that I had the opportunity to do this race.  I am really excited to return on Sunday to see the U23, and pro and women's races.