2008 CX#6 : State Championship
November 15th, 2008 | Published in general | 5 Comments
24th of 55 overall in the B race, 8th place out of 19 for singlespeeds.
heading around the pond at the 2008 State Champ CX race
photo courtesy of skinnyski.com
After racing both days last weekend, i uncharacteristically took an entire week off the bike and drove to work. Oh, the shame. I was tired, the weather was crappy, wacka wacka wacka. So i just called it a hard taper for the last ‘cross race of the season.
My main race prep was washing my bike. It hadn’t been more than hosed down once over the whole season, and the chain was a rotating mass of goo. So last night i set it over the basement drain, filled a bucket with warm water, got out the dish soap and went at it. At least the bike would be ready to go this time.
The state course was much different this year than the past 3 years. There’s no escaping the long staircase runup, but other years it has centered around and maximized the hill for pain and spectating pleasure. This year the start/finish was across the park near registration, and they really made full use of the park area. The result was a very long (~2 mile) and much flatter course than before, so they threw in a ride through the very loose sand volleyball pit just for fun. It made up for an otherwise dry and merely cold day.
The sand was not an issue for me, i was able to power & float through it pretty well, enough to pick up a place or two over riders who were slower or running it. I would lose a bit of ground on the long straightaways, but there was very little passing around me after the first lap. Unlike my other races, this one went 45 minutes, so i tried to pace myself a bit more. The race consisted of singlespeeds and men’s 45+, so there were some A-race singlespeeders there and some very fast old guys. I spent most of the race hovering near a Kenwood guy, unable to put him away for any length of time, and he couldn’t open the gap much either.
I felt well enough for most of the race to hold good lines and keep good form, including bunny-hopping some of the rougher sections of the long descent. I bogged down on lap 4/5, getting really tired and feeling a cramp starting in my left foot. I could see that i had a clear 100 yards or more behind me, but i was focusing on the 2 riders within 20 yards ahead. On the last lap, just starting the trip around the hockey rink i was able to jump ahead of the Kenwoodie and hang on for one more place. I bunny-hopped the finish line just for good measure.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:45 pm (#)
appropriate style, the bunny hop. congrats. you enjoy lactic acid more than i
November 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am (#)
you looked faster than 8th it must be the beard….the lack of chain goo had to contribute to the stellar effort. Nice work…time to start training for next year.
November 16th, 2008 at 10:08 am (#)
I trimmed the beard last week – more aero!
Nice finish your own self, Mr. Monte.
November 17th, 2008 at 6:27 pm (#)
That was an exciting read. What gave you the ability to get through the sand?
cool picture too. The water and grass are more separated than I would expect in cyclocross.
November 17th, 2008 at 8:29 pm (#)
It was a pretty dry race, thanks to the freezing temps. 3 years ago the course went through the creek and about 4″ of mud.
The key to the sand was to carry a lot of speed into it, then keep the front wheel as light as possible while pedaling as hard as possible. If/when i bogged down, i’d sort of lift the bars to keep the front wheel from diving in. If the pit had been twice as long i would have walked it at least once, when both shoes came unclipped 10′ before the end.
I’ve ridden a lot of sand on my mountain bike – in fact, mountain bike handling skills are a big help in lots of parts of ‘cross racing.