Blunt Park CX

[onegeardoug]

Cyclocross is finally here! True to form, it rained the whole day, making the course totally crappy, or perfect...depending on your perspective.

The highlight of my day was watching Bauer's kid put the smack down in the midget race. In a one lap race, he was in 3rd over the barriers into the twisties, sitting on a wheel. All 3 of them took turns fumbling around corners and through mud. Then, the last depression/mud-pit before the pavement and the finish line, Lil Bauer launches a wicked attack on the left side as first gets bogged down in the mud. Bauer hits the pavement in first and drills it to the line for the victory! It was beautiful. The 2 kids he pimped were at least a foot taller than him, and had gears. Lil Bauer laid the smack down on a BMX bike! Kudos.

I raced the Masters 35+ and the Cat 3/4, back-to-back at 11AM and noon. There was 25 or so racers in the Masters 35+, and I came out of the first turn in 6th or 7th. By the end of the first lap, I was in 5th...when I slid out on the pavement on the first turn...180degrees and slicker than greased snot. Big raspberry on my butt, but no other damage. I had been dangling about 10-15 seconds behind 4th for a while, so with 2 to go, I tried to get him and get into the money. No luck though. I was at least 30 seconds in front of 6th (Mark Gonsulas), so I shut it down and began thinking about the second race. Finished in 5th. Mark went down hard in the ditch where Lil Bauer launched his attack. He was laying in the mud moaning for a while...

Quickly hosed off the drivetrain, lubed the chain, pulled the first number off and ate a Cliff Block...and lined up for race #2 against a bunch of really fit looking kids in the 3/4. Probably 40+ racers on the line. Not sure why I thought this was a good idea. Go. Good start and came out of the first turn in 10th; worked my way up to 5th after 2-3 laps. It was like dejay-vu all over again. 2 to go, tried to bridge to 4th and into the money. No luck. Finished 5th.

Two 5ths, no money, but had a pretty good day. My bike handling was really good, especially in the turns...except when I went down on the pavement. My barriers were so-so. Once I got right up on them before I realized it and nearly came to a complete stop. Ooops. Not good. My fitness is pretty good. My tactics weren't so good. I missed the split to race the leaders in both races and spent over 90% of the time in the wind by myself. Most of this was dictated by the course, though. Hard to draft on that course. And my ribs still hurt pretty bad from 24HOGG.

A pretty good start to the season, though.

[taudep]

Doing a 24 hour mountain bike race is the PERFECT thing to do to hone in bike handling skills the week before CX starts.

Congrats on the consistency, AND the back to back races (another thing HOGG was good training for, except this time it wasn't 3 am).

[atomkin]

Great job out there Doug. You looked very good in your first race, and although I had to hit the road, I'm really impressed that you were also able to turn it around so quickly and do another race right after.

As for my Cat 4 race, I got in a good warmup and was able to inspect the course. I lost the race to line up though, and was stuck behind most of the 40 plus guys at the start. I was able to sprint wide to the outside at the end of the first paved straightaway, before it broke into a 180 degree turn onto the dirt. This allowed me to get past a good chunk of the field, who were stuck on the inside. I was able to pick off a few more as we worked our way through the woods, which included 2 natural barriers. As I made my way out of some off camber roots, I heard one guy go down pretty hard behind me. I saw him after the race, and he thinks he might have cracked a rib. I was sprinting out of my turns as I had planned, trying to pick guys off. I was handling the course pretty well at this point, sitting about mid pack in 20th. I started to fade a little bit on the second lap, and one guy passed me running through a tricky up/down/up section as I rode it(rookie mistake on my part). I ended up shouldering on my subsequent laps which was much faster.

I was still doing well until I had what I thought was a minor spill in a loamy section right before entering the woods. I popped back up to hop on my bike, but it wouldn't roll. I looked over my derailleurs, and chain, not really seeing anything too badly damaged, when I noticed my rear brake. I had managed to push the right brake arm and pad off the rim, almost into the spokes, and had jammed my rear wheel. Thankfully this happened right next to pit, and the neutral support guy was able to give me a hand. After about 3 minutes of swearing under my breath, and fighting with the bike, I was able to get rolling again. By this time I had lost quite a few places, and my rear brake would jam when I tried to use it. So I finished out my race using only my front brake, which felt very strange. I ended up 29th overall, about 5 minutes behind the winner. I still felt pretty good about the race. I had a lot of fun, was able to make it through the barriers pretty fast, and met my pre race lap time goals even after suffering the mechanical. My plan for the next race is to be more aggressive getting to the starting line, and actually be able to sprint off the start.

[Smudger]

Great start to the season Doug. Not too surprising after wednesday night though.

[atomkin]

Here are a few random pictures from the Cat 4, and Doug's 35+ race. http://tinyurl.com/3348v5g

[Rob]

Full race report of my boy's race.
MRC gets first cross win of the year!
http://doublehop.blogspot.com/2010/08/b ... -2010.html

as for my race, I was too big of a wuzz to dig deep and go in the pain cave, I finished at the back of the 4s with way too much left on the tank!

I was so ill prepare for rain, no idea there was rain in the forecast, it was raining buckets out in western ma!

Doug, you looked good out there! way to go!

Rob