Monday, October 29, 2007

KC Cross Race

I traveled to KC to see my parents and to race some more cyclocross Sunday. The course was 2 miles long and is the same course they are going to have to the US cyclocross nationals. The course was long, great for spectators and twisty. There were two spots on course with barriers, but no sand and no stairs to run up. I raced the singlespeed class which went off with the 3/4 field. I was hoping to race with gears, but my bike wasn't ready yet. The course was long and you can see most of the course from one spot. The course also looped back and forth on itself several times and that made it great for spectators.

I thought I had a chance at the podium until Cameron Chambers and the lessor well known Tillford pulled up to the line in single speeds. Those guys are fast as hell. I was in the middle of a large field of 50+ riders. By looking around I could see most people were cat 3s because they had a 4s only race early in the day. I got a good start but just couldn't match the speed in the open sections that the geared guys were running. At the first tight turn I made up a few spots on the non-bike handling roadies and I settled in for a mid pack spot all race. I did notice most guys can corner on tight turns nor handle off camber stuff. I did bump a guy going into a tight turn and later apologized. He was cool with that. I passed quite a few guys who faded, and a few got by me. I battled people the whole time and I think I ended up 4th or 5th in single speed and mid field overall. Full results are posted yet and I didn't wait around for an hour to see the results. It was probably the hardest cross race I've done in a long time but the whole race I was pushing as hard as I could to keep catching and passing guys. One guy I chased for 1/2 lap and when I got close he pulled out midway around the course and quit. What the hell? After the race I enjoyed some great free beer and free food. For the day they had 200+ racers and I am looking forward to coming back in December for the Nationals.

Next up, I'm getting some gears and heading back to the Bubba series.

2 comments:

Ted C. MacRae said...

You should be a 3 too!

Bobber said...

Good race dude. You're going to be killer on that new bike!