CX Race 4: Syracuse Grand Prix

Jeremy, Jack, and I loaded up and headed out of Ithaca at 8:30 AM along with several pieces of apple pie and a bin full of cookies. After a bit of confusion with the construction at the 81/690W interchange we got to Long Branch Park, the venue for the day's muddy fun.

We arrived just after 10 and had time to pick up our numbers, get dressed and take in a lap or two for warm up and course recon. Hrm. Not that many tight turns and only 2 or three at a time. Lots of strait aways. Two mud pits. Long muddy strait away leading into a very soggy and slow grassy stretch leading into a hill with some pitch to it and some sand with a couple turns thrown in the mix.A side hill with s turns. A few sections of gravel. A whoop de whoop that you could get air off of. Looked like a tough course and a tough group of women to face off with.

On my first trip around I found some of the lines, had trouble with some, and found the side hill s turns rather terrifying.I couldn't ride the sandy hill the first time through, but I did manage it the second practice trip. Second time around David talked me through those same s turns and showed me a line through the muck and later while i was getting nervous at the start, explained a good line for the climb. Then it was time to go.

A group of 7 immediately gapped the rest of us... then there was me... and a bit behind me was the rest of the field. No man's land. Well at least that meant I didn't have to worry about bottle necks. At least until about half way through the first lap when I caught up to a few folks on the climb. Despite being around others, I was still able to get up the hill and ride the line I wanted. After that I slowly started passing some of the men and then one of the women. Eventually I passed several more women and a few of the men looked familiar. At this point I was pretty sure a couple of the men and women I had passed were riders I was lapping. Unfortunately (or should that be fortunately?) the lead men lapped me on my 5th lap - the lead guy was on his final lap when he caught me just before the mud pits. That meant I was also on my last lap. I am not sure where the 2nd guy lapped me - I was trying to focus on what was going on in front of me rather than what was coming around me from behind. The third place guy caught me at the bottom of the hill though. I was a little bummed about finding out half what through the lap I though was my second to last lap that I was really on my last lap. I had been closing in slowly but surely on some more women - women I was pretty sure I was catching rather than lapping and I was confident that barring any surprises I would have passed at least one of them with an additional lap. I managed a 5th out of 11 women in the open category and 7th out of 15 if you include the 4 women who raced in the masters category but started at the same time as the open women.

I found the course a challenge. The side hill S was not as tough as I had been afraid it would be. I was even OK on the passes where the left foot was on the downhill side. The side hill pass by the tree was a little awkward, but I managed that as well. The big soupy double track at the bottom of the course wasn't bad along the left most side in the trees and the soup along the lake was slow but ridable along a number of lines and I passed people there almost every lap. I did have trouble with mud pits each time and it wasn't until I finished and was on a warm down lap that I realized through the middle of the puddle was the least squirrelly route through. You learn something every race I guess.

I started catching men who started a minute before me early and steadily passing more as the race went on, and being in a position late in the race of catching women and lapping women. The twisty nature of the course also made for short sight lines and difficulty in knowing where the folks in front of me were. I was expecting the men to lap me at some point, but I had no idea they were bearing down on me when I did get passed. All this not knowing where I was during the race, or what was happening around the next bend made me realize that for a mid to back field rider like me it is best to focus energy on getting around that next bend, or over the rough terrain in front of me rather than on worrying over where how many riders are ahead or behind. I realized that for me the best mindset to be in was that for a time trial. Using the riders ahead as rabbits to help keep the intensity high, but focusing on the moving forward, on getting over the terrain ten feet in front of me.

I took several short video clips of the open men who raced after my race ended. I strung those clips together into a single 10 minute video which I posted on YouTube.

Results are up on the Onondaga Cycling Club website and at BikeReg.com.

CX Race 3: SwanDrome

10/10/10 so a 10th place might be the "win" for the day.

Lots of cycling going on in NY State and PA this weekend and it seems like all the heavy hitters headed into Pennsylvania for Iron Cross. I opted for a weekend at home and chose to do SwanDrome Cross. With the venue not even 3 miles from home, how could I not. I expected a small field given the number of people who were doing Iron Cross, but perhaps with the heavy hitters gone those of us who are mere mortals at the sport felt more comfortable coming out to play. At what by all accounts was a small local event, we had a 12 women!!! What a great turn out! Several of the women were giving cross a go for the first time as well.

The first timers and the rest of us chose a perfect day to play. It was sunny, the trees were absolutely on fire in their fall finery, and the course was long and challenging, though not as muddy as feared given the mid week rains. That is, of course, not to say that there was no mud on the course.

The day kicked off with two kids races - one for the youngest youngsters - those with push bikes and bikes with tiny wheels. They did an impressive loop around the house and the pond. A very impressive showing by those little ones. The second kids race doubled the fun and did two laps of the little race. It was an exciting finish with first and second place neck in neck coming into the line. The winner took the honors by less than a wheel.

After the youngsters had their fun it was time for the "adults" to duke it out. The men took off and the women were told that when there was a "reasonable gap" in the men's field we would be set loose - instantly mingling with the men's field and allowing a single lap counter to take care of both races. The first 6 guys came into site with a decent gap behind them. That gaps seemed to shrink as they took the sag around the pond, and it appeared perilously small when we were told to join the mix. The guys who all of a sudden found themselves having to make their way through a gaggle of gals seemed to take it in stride and with good cheer.

The course started in some wet grass and then went onto a double track in the woods, where we slalomed around some logs, made a few turns and climbed up a short hill. Then it was back down the hill on a mix of double track and single track, up the other side of the hill and into the border of the lawn and the woods where we did a series of zig zags before diving back into the woods, down a short steep pitch and back up to the field after a short piece of single track. Once back up on field level we went around some fields, including some down hill and one bumpy and wet uphill with a single barrier at the top where it was tough to get enough momentum for a quick remount. Then it was into a zig zag, around an off camber turn that meant swimming in the pond if you didn't make it, and around the pond. From the pond we hopped on the gravel driveway came into a 180, faced off with a double barrier, did another 180 and were on the start line.

Right from the gun, three of us emerged from the front of the pack with LiLynn up front then me in second for a short time and Sarah behind me until she found a good place to pass. Starting lap three all three of us were right together. Somewhere in there Sarah snuck by LiLynn, but we were pretty tight. That is until I utterly flubbed the remount of the single barrier. I had very little momentum and when I "jumped" back on the bike, my foot completely missed the pedal. With no forward momentum on the slight up and bumpy ground I had to put a foot down again and essentially started from a dead stop... with Sarah and LiLynn long gone in front of me. I lost a little more time to the two of them on each of the remaining 3 laps as I just could not get that remount down. Happily I was not as much of a disaster on getting back on the bike at the double barrier in the start finish area - where all the spectators were hanging out. My effort was good for a 3/12, about a minute behind Sarah and LiLynn who stayed together the whole race. The men lapped those two just meters before the end of their 6th lap. We were initially told we would be doing 7 laps, but in cross when you get lapped you do fewer laps since the race is run for a certain amount of time rather than for a specified distance. Since the men lapped Sarah and LiLynn just before they (the men finished), the two women were told they were done when just seconds later they finished their 6th lap. LiLynn had been planning to attack Sarah on the 7th lap and go for a win. As it was, Sarah managed the win. I was pretty much in no man's land so all of a sudden finding myself done didn't affect my race at all. Fourth place was about a minute behind me.

A fun day on a tough course. A huge thanks to Glenn and Marcia Swan for hosting the race.

CX Race 2: CX Brewery Ommegang

One week and two practices after my first attempt at cross at Buck Hill I gave it another go at the Ommegang Brewery on October 3rd. The weather was sunny and warm (in the sun) and the course was tacky and fast by the time my race ("Elite" women) came along. Elite being place inside those quotation marks because the field was for all the women's USAC categories.

The course started in a super wide grassy field then headed into a series of super tight turns that lead into a short bit of single track and a climb that in some years is a run-up. Immediately after climbing that hill we dropped back down into a zigzag and then a strait away into a tight s curve at the bottom of another hill. We descended that one as soon as we crested it and went into a section of 180's that ended with an off camber left hander with a double barrier immediately after the turn. The barriers were on a slight side hill. Just past the barrier was another turn that took us through the beer tent, around a bend and back through the start.

The women's race was supposed to be 45 minutes. I was focused on the people and terrain in front of me and never once looked up at the lap counters... I just kept riding until the officials told me I was done. Luckily Jeff Poulin was not of a mind to send me out for extra laps.

Often times races head into a tight section of course pretty soon after the start, so a fast start is pretty important. The less time you spend bottle necked and trying to get around people the more time you have to ride hard at your own speed. Knowing I am not very strong in the "technical" parts of 'cross, I am hesitant to go for a front line start, plus I don't have the sprint for it. I had a pretty timid start at Ommegang - probably one of the last 2 or 3 around the first bend. They started the single speeders 30 seconds to a minute behind us and the juniors just behind them. Despite my slow start I still went into the curves in a tight line. The single speed men and a couple of juniors started coming past us in that section, creating quite the chaotic scene to ride through. I survived the first lap and even passed a person or two, and then systematically started chasing down individuals in front of me. I managed to pass at least one person on each lap and even snuck back past a few of the juniors and single speed guys who barreled on by in the first 1/2 mile. My effort was good enough for a 12/23.

Official results are posted at BikeReg.com. There were several folks out taking pictures on race day and pictures of me in various poses of ineptitude can be found online. Wrekkers77 posted his photos on flicker. I think I am only in the one of all the women at the start. Most of these pictures look to be of the Elite men.

Mark Williams also posted some 400 pictures from the race. Pictures from the women, single speed and juniors start at #176. I am in pictures 187, 188, 221, 269.