Cyclocross at the Thunderdome
Okay, I was a little over excited when I wrote that post proclaiming that people would die and the turf would be stained red with blood when I raced cross at the…ahem….Thunderdome.
We actually didn’t race in it…but around it. Apparently, though, there is going to be a race in it in January! So then blood will flow, and all that jazz.
Anyway. I awoke Sunday morning to somewhat clear skies – not ideal for racing cross, mind you. But by the time Josh Austin and I had headed to Papa Wheelies so he could buy a pair of shoes to race in, the rain was coming down. The Belgian gods smiled kindly upon us, and poured rain down to give us mud – an integral ingredient of any cyclocross recipe. Other ingredients include Mark McCormack, peeing in bottles, and random ass courses.
Thankfully, today had all of these ingredients!
The course was interesting – short, but interesting. There was some pavement (YAY), some gravel (eh), some twist and turns through a field (eh), some wooded sections (did I mention I’m riding like a six year old who just got off training wheels?) a sand pit and barriers.
There was also Mark McCormack, who was friendly enough on the start line. Which is not surprising, as he was only among twenty or so guys, none of whom were Tim Johnson or Ryan Trebon.
Anyway, Kinnan said go, and off we went. Did I mention that this was my first cross race? As well as my first cross race on my new SRAM Rival stuff? Yeah. Which meant that I have basically forgotten what gear I usually start in, what tire pressure to run – most every piece of knowledge I had gained through last season has since evacuated my head.
So. I amazingly was the LAST RIDER in the 20 RIDER RACE. The field pretty much stayed together for the first lap as I moved around people, unsure of myself on my bike, fearing that at any moment I was going to crash horrifically into an unknown piece of rebar sticking out of the ground at an angle. The back of my bike was skipping out around corners, I couldn’t really hammer on the gravel section as I didn’t know what I was doing – all good fun!
So then the “strong riders” took off the front and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves. I spent about a lap hanging out with this group until I hit a bump and my left hood slipped down, causing my front brake to totally lockup.
Great. So I then rode a lap at a snails pace – I couldn’t undo my cantilever brake because it was so tight against my wheel I couldn’t close it enough to loosen it – while getting passed by everyone to the pit. Once in the pit, I tracked down a 5mm Allen key, adjusted my hood for a minute or two and then got back in the race – solidly in dead last. Or, as PVB said “You weren’t in just dead last. You were in dead last by a lot.”
So then I spent the rest of the race attempting to chase people down. The rain eventually returned, so I continued to get muddy. I managed to catch three or four people, but not before I was lapped by six others. After I had to hit the pit I lost quite a bit of motivation.
But the race was still fun. Hopefully I got my mechanical out of the way for the season, and I realized that there is no way in hell that I’m racing elites this year. I talked to Dan Langois, who was always racing around me last year, as well as all the other cross people that I only see when the weather gets shitty and Richard Frieze busts out his fall line of insane metaphors.
dead last… by a lot.
this also sounds familiar.