Monday, December 17, 2012

Lost Trail CX

Last weekend was the first ever Lost Trail CX race. The race was held at the Louisberg Cider Mill - a place that makes cider, has a corn maze / pumpkin patch, and some great terrain for a CX race.

It rained the day before the race, so the ground was somewhat slick and sticky early in the day but by the open race the mud was packed down enough that there really weren't any slick sections. However, while the mud was packed down, there were quite a few rocks that showed up in the course that had earlier been hidden under layers of dirt or mud. These rocks made for quite a few flats over the course of the day. It was supposed to get up in the mid 40s and sunny, but it hovered around 35 degrees and foggy the entire day. The turnout for the open race was pretty small (7 guys), but the guys who showed up were definitely fast (Tilford and Shadd Smith to name just a couple).

I got a pretty bad start (last place into the first corner), but moved up a spot half-way through the first lap. After the first lap I found myself just a second or two behind JP Brocket and Steve Songer. Over the next 4 laps, JP Brocket had a mechanical, Steve Songer crashed, I flatted, and JP flatted again. After all of those issues and the continual passing and being passed, I found myself in 5th place with Songer about 10 seconds ahead of me. He started growing the gap and my back tire kept on bottoming out, so I eased up for last couple of laps and was content with 5th place. I was sure I had close to 30 psi in my back tire when I aired it up before my pre-ride, but I got back to my car and realized I somehow only had around 20 psi in my back tire... definitely not enough for this course.

I thought this was one of the most fun courses so far this year. Since I flatted my front tubular, I also got to try using my one of new clinchers (Clement Crusade PDX). I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy those in tubular form for next year; they had an unbelievable amount of traction in the corners yet still seemed to roll decently fast for a set of really knobby tires. Cross off the old year is in 2 weeks from now and should be my last CX race of the season.

Trying to stay with JP after my flat and his first flat. Photo credit goes to David Tsai.



Monday, December 10, 2012

KS State Championships

KS State Championships were Saturday in Topeka. Last year I raced the day before the state championships (Capital Cup) but not the following day, so I was at least somewhat familiar with the park the race was being held at. However, the course was much different than what was used for Capital Cup last year; while Capital Cup was an all-out power couse, this one was more technical yet still flowed REALLY well.

This was really the first cool cross race of the year (high 40s and cloudy), so it took me a while to get warmed up. Even once I finished my normal warm-up, my legs still didn't feel like they were awake yet. While warming up, I also noticed that more and more fast guys were showing up. David Neidinger jokingly made a comment that we might be fighting for last place today. Even though we both knew that was a bit of an exaggeration, we knew the field was stacked.

I got a first row start because of KBAR points (even if I wouldn't have had the points, getting on the first row isn't hard when the field isn't huge) and got a mediocre start. Through the long straight paved section, I came into the first corner around 9th place. I lost a few positions once we hit the grass and the subsequent technical sections. I could immediately tell that I didn't warm up as well as I should have - my legs just didn't seem to have any energy. For the first two laps, I simply watched 7th - 11th place ride away from me.

Finally, about three laps in my legs woke up and I started to feel better. I made up ground and passed 11th place one lap later. For the first few laps, there were four guys riding together fighting for 7th place, but by this time Adam Mills and and Bill Marshall had put a gap into Michael Smith and Bill Stolte. I was slowly gaining on Michael and Bill S. and eventually caught them with 2 laps to go. I put in a hard dig right at the start/finish and had a 2-3 second gap going into the technical section. Bill was riding this section MUCH faster than me and caught back up to me (note to self - ride more mountain bike this year!). When we hit the pavement with 1 to go,I hit the gas again and got a good 5-10 second gap this time. Bill was gaining on me again, but I was confident that I could hold him off since the finishing stretch was paved and straight. However, I heard him get tangled up riding the small barriers at the end, which allowed me to soft pedal in for 9th place on the day.

A fun day on the bike. Next weekend is Lost Trail CX (check it out... supposedly the course is like a Euro world cup course on the Kansas prairie), then hopefully at least one of the Christmas week races (probably Cross off the old year). I'm pretty much done doing anymore real training for cx this year though - from here on out it's going to be base miles and commuting.