a midway bikelog

CX 2007 #3 - Boom Island

10th for C1, 11/73(?) overall in the C race

Me, showing reasonably good form on the runup. My bike carrying technique improved dramatically after some tutoring from fellow rodent Rich.
(photo from skinnyski.com, i’ve emailed to buy pictures before, and no response yet. Y’all let me know if you want me to take this down or buy it!)

Finally, a race with some real cyclocross weather after two races in the terrible heat. 50°F and drizzling rain sounds awful except when you’re racing all-out for 30 minutes (or more), then it’s great. If anything, i could have skipped the longsleeve wool shirt and just worn arm warmers with the jersey. I was glad when the rain stopped though, because it’s hard to see with water on my glasses. The early rain wasn’t enough to make much mud, but did make everything more slippery. The grassy straights got faster, if anything, over time and some of the corners were probably pretty muddy by the time the As were heading out.

I got a decent start, probably somewhere in the 20s after the first off-camber bottleneck turn (where the B race had a major pile-up, hope Charlie’s ok!). This is my 3rd year at this race, plus I’d had the luxury of 3 pre-race laps around the course, so i had worked out a pretty good idea of lines and gearing and felt like i was pretty well on top of the course from the start. I dropped the chain somehow on the first runup, but managed to get it back on reasonably well on the run and lost maybe 3 places because of it, but gained them back by the end of the lap.

The course was a little different this year; the first off-camber turn was in a different spot, one barrier dropped from the first 1/3 of the lap, and instead of a long sweeping turn on the back stretch it was a rather annoying maze (which they called the pyramid of pain). The maze was a little treacherous but mainly an exercise in not losing momentum or crashing. I had the toe spikes on my shoes which helped a lot with the runup this time. The new Mud2 tires were great, only slipping a little in the maze, which was all wet grass and mud, so no complaints. The couple of times that i could feel the tires start to slide it was very predictable and manageable.

After the first lap, i’ve usually burned through the initial burst of energy and need a lap to just hold my own and recover. Same thing this time, though i didn’t feel so drained through the second lap today, and managed to hang on to the end of the lead group all the way around. I started moving up through the pack with the 3rd lap, picking up a good 6-7 places on that lap (or was it the 4th? i think it was a 5-lap race) and feeling pretty good. I got another few places on the last lap, but couldn’t quite out-sprint the Freewheel guy after pulling even with him at the last barrier.

This is the 3rd race of the season for me, and by far the best. I felt strong and on top of my race and was better over the barriers though i still need to work on my form there. I feel ready for the extra laps of a B race after this one, and i’m still thinking of trying one or two races singlespeed.