Providence Festival of CX Saturday & Sunday

[rusto]

Sunday, 4/5 35+.

One day on the bike all week (way back on Tuesday), no breakfast, adequate warmup, 3/4 lap course inspection.

Lined up 79th (DNF at Gloucester destroyed my decent call up position) with the goal of avoiding early race traffic mishaps and then to simply ride hard and smart once things strung out.

Pretty good start, got by a bunch of people up the hill and stayed out of trouble on the first lap, dodging one crash early on that pretty much comprised the total of people that I was able to pass the rest of the race except for...

2nd lap, on that 1st off-camber there were two guys (remember this is 35+) SHOVING EACH OTHER and shouting recriminations as the result of some tangle that occurred before I got there. Amazingly, some spectator simply shouted, "FIGHT!" like this was some schoolyard thing. I called out, "Come on, let's be GENTLEMEN here!" Criminy - these guys were probably somewhere in the 40's or 50's placement-wise.

That was the high point of the race, as far as excitement goes for me. Had a coupla bobbles on the semi-greasy areas. Felt like I did a good job targeting the grassy lines and only hit the mud when I had to cross over for a turn.

Had my first-ever bounce-induced drivetrain issue just before the double pair of steps, RD/chain jumped a cog and was not happy when I pedaled (lap 4 of 5?). A bit of fiddling, and loss of a handful of places, did the trick.

Last lap, I was CERTAIN I was DFL: no one in sight behind me as far as I could tell - knowing that they were 80%-ing people (saw Mike McCabe heckling by the start with two to go even though I lined up next to him). Caught up to some other sad sack and told him it looked like we were the race for not-last. This brought a chuckle, and a burst of energy from him. Doh!

As he pulled away, I pushed a little too hard and skidded off into the tape, not falling but getting tangled enough for him to be away for good. I prepared myself for the only thing that I thought I had left in my arsenal as dead last in the field: yelling at pre-riders that would likely start passing me.

Much to my surprise, the last time behind the pavilion/colonnade, a look over my shoulder revealed a handful of riders behind me MUCH too dirty to be pre-riding. Yay, WAY not-last.

In fact there was an amazing 27 other racers behind me, I finished 72nd of 99.

Fountains of Meh.

[rusto]

OOF: earlier, when they only had the bib#’s listed, I was 72nd, now with names, 81st.

[rusto]

Double oof:not only did they bump me down 9 spots, they have me as "Lap" which DID NOT HAPPEN. They have me as the first lapped rider, the last non-lapped rider's time is 1.5 minutes LONGER than what I recorded on my Garmin.

Scoring seriously screwed up this weekend.

[cbusick]

I lined up behind Marty from Geekhouse. Then Brad Smith rolled up next to me since he missed his call up. People heckled him. I clipped in well at the start, but had to back off as Brad swerved across in front of me to cut from 4 in from the left all the way over to the left. After that I actually did a decent job sprinting up the road and making the right turn. As we went up the loose dirt climb just before the full set of stairs a voice behind me said, "go left, it's faster!" I did and picked up 4 places, yelled thank you, then thought I could pick up a couple more on the off camber at the crest by going left. I hit the 1/2 buried root which threw me to the left with my bike going on one side of the a stake and me on the other. This cost me a bunch of spots as I untangled myself. I rode ok after that moving up a couple spots, but mostly just holding my place for the rest of the lap. I picked off several on the road, then had an uneventful second lap, then people started getting tired and I began to move up. I was chasing two guys in black and white kits, I passed one, and began reeling in the second, who was a Landry's rider. I was right on his wheel, figured I'd pass him as we went by the pits and I hit a rut on that downhill off-camber by the course crossing and went down. I was still clipped in on the right and was able to pick the bike up and jump back on fairly quickly, but was repassed by the other B&W guy and opened a huge gap to Landries. So, I started over, catching up to and passing the B&W guy then starting to work on bringing Landry's back again. We hit the bell lap and Landry's obviously had more left in the tank than I, as he picked up the pace as we passed several people. I didn't catch him before the finish, and actually he was pulling away, but I held off everyone else for my crappy 84th place. I think I need a break. My legs don't have any snap to them lately and I'm not passing people like I was a couple weeks ago.

[Bruce]

Fun race on Saturday on the 55+. My # was 86 which means I started DFL. Terrible first lap, but I kept pulling the chord and hitting the choke and the old engine finally sputtered to life. Started passing lots of riders. Body scan-- hip/thigh okay -- so I allowed myself to rev it up a bit more. passed more people. Got a flat on the last lap and had to run 1/3 mi to the pit. I got a wheel and finished the race ... Mercifully because with first real intensity in a couple years my legs were shot. Ended up 40th, which gave me some confidence. Thanks to Todd, Ed, dick Ring and all the Goguens for the cowbell!

[swawersik]

Saturday

- My son started the day asking (with a disappointed tone) if I was racing. Yes. "Dad, we never get to hang out 'cause you're always racing." Guilt.

- Got to the course around 9:15. Saw Anna Savage, who informed me in a suprized tone that "My dad is racing, and he's not doing BADLY!"

- Pre-rode, reg'ed, got in another pre-ride: great course, but not alot of places for easy passing early in the lap, which would matter with 154 guys pre-reg'd for my race.

- Lined up WAY at the back. Like, so far back that my rear wheel was touching the fencing at the back of the staging area. Realized that if you need to improve your crossresults points, the big races are NOT the place to do it. As Mark Vanliere said, "Clean and upright through lap 1 is a win." Race goals adjusted from, "drastically improve cxresults points" to "move up as much as you can."

- Start. By the time I was on the grass, the leaders were already past the 180 around the announcers booth and onto the off cambers. So in the first 30 seconds, the leaders already have a 1/4 to 1/3 of a lap head start. Race goals adjusted on the fly to "don't get lapped."

- Made the first lap upright and moved up some, but went WAY into the red to do it. About halfway through lap 2, I realized that racing through traffic (especially on that course) requires an ability to repeatedly put in hard 10-20 second jumps, with little recovery in between. This is exactly the opposite of the "big diesel engine" riding that is my strength. While this was disheartening, it also led led me to change the way I raced: I have a tendency to gun it hard at the start of every power section, trying to take as much advantage of those sections as I can, but then I'm blown by the end of them. Instead, I started concentrating on metering my efforts on these sections so I was ramping up more slowly, but going as hard as I could by the end. This worked pretty well, and I felt like I was riding much better in the last 3 laps.

- Finished 110/159 starters. 9 better than the RP (you have to use that metric to figure out if results like mine are good or not). Next to last "not lapped" rider.

- Met my wife in Franklin to pick up my son and spend the afternoon with him at the race. He loved riding on the kids course and climbing up trees to watch the racing. He's excited to race the MRC kids race and is looking forward to racing CX in a few years. So, WIN.

Sunday

- Raining hard at my house, and the weather map made Providence look as bad or worse. I didn't feel like spending 1/2 the day away from my family and the other half doing post-race bike cleaning. The apparent futility of staging 153'd made the draw even less. So I bailed and put a big dent in both the "Honey-do" and bike maintenance lists.

- From the pictures I've seen, it wasn't as muddy as I'd expected. And my complaining about the futility of racing from the back was made to look stupid by Chris "I rode through 143 guys to finish 13th" Pare (boy, do I want to read THAT race report). So I regret my decision to bail a little. But only a little.

[pace21]

Stupid me forgot to pre-reg by noon on Tuesday, so I had to start at the back of the (gulp!) 155 rider field. The first lap was mayhem – elbowing, riding over the horizontal wheels of downed bikes, bunnyhopping riders as they lay sprawled out on the ground in front of the barriers. Picked off clumps of riders, 10, 20, 40 at a time and eventually rode myself into 13th by the end of it. Man was I tired.

OK, now for the truth. I did register day of, but I asked nicely at the reg table and just like that, they added me to the start list according to my Verge points rather than DFL. Nice, staged 21st rather than 155th. The most painful part of the process was paying $60 to race. It felt like back in the MX days where hemorrhaging cash on race day was just a “thing” you had to get used to. So after all the reg table shenanigans, warmed up with Chris and PJ …… and then proceeded to get to the start line late (noooooo!!!!!!!!!). They were already on the fifth or so guy and I was on the wrong side of the steel barriers with my bike and I looked back to see a solid chute of 150 guys stretching to Cranston. My only option was to lift my bike over the fence and then do the ill-advised fence-hop and hope to not roll an ankle on the landing (nylon fencing zip tied to the barriers meant moving them wasn’t an option). Got over just in time to hear my name and just like that I’m on the second row. Boom!

From there the rest of the race was uneventful, except that it was easily the most fun Verge race course I’ve done. Good start, rode with the lead group of 5-6 for a while, then started making little concessions on any part of the course that required running. God I hate running. I could consistently clean the double stairs by swinging wide on the entry and getting a good run at them, and that was way faster since I could stay on the bike and ride the next set of stairs – the problem was to swing wide meant opening up an inside line which 1 or 2 riders snuck in to on each of the first 2 laps. Then it’s single file on the run up due to the tight corners. Boo. Passed a few riders, bled some spots. The usual stuff. Had a couple great battles going with some familiar faces. I will say, for all the chatter about the 3’s vs the 35+ in terms of chaos and aggression, at least to me the front end of the 3’s seems very cordial. We passed each other back and forth quite a bit but we always left room and never chopped lines or yelled. I know it’s a different story midpack though.

My highlight had to be clearing the tabletop on the last lap to pick up a spot on one of the guys I was racing with who took the wide line. I was sneaking up on clearing it each lap, but the opportunity to make a pass on the last lap had me not touch the brakes going in. I landed with my rear wheel on the down ramp and my front wheel on the dirt and damn near thought my front wheel was going to explode. Yes he got me back before the finish but I’ll choose not to remember that part.

[swawersik]

OK, now for the truth. I did register day of, but I asked nicely at the reg table and just like that, they added me to the start list according to my Verge points rather than DFL. Nice, staged 21st rather than 155th.

As much as I'd have liked to hear a story of riding through hundreds of guys, I have to admit that hearing you got your "rightful" placing makes me feel much less inadequate for being able to only pick up 10-15 spots consistently in these races.

Oh, and despite the lack of an epic story, congrats on a great race.

[jraguin]

A bunch of comments from an essentially non-CXer:
1. I read from the top and actually thought that Chris P went from dead last to 13th. My whole theory of "there is only so many spots you can move up in a cross race". Thankfully I kept reading so my theory is still in place.
2. $60? Wow... organizing huge CX races like that one must be decently lucrative without the big cost of police duty for the most part. People give me crap when I suggest road races should charge that much.
3. Re: Fight. People need to calm down in these races. I remember a few years ago, a guy wasn't giving me space and I asked him politely to give me a little space to go by. He proceeded to lace profanity at me. I remember I passed him on the next straight regardless. If you read enough of these race reports, you realize that everyone goes down all the time. It isn't bad riding or malicious intent... it seems to just be the nature of the way 'cross is.
4. I looked at the results. I didn't realize Mike Rowell is such a CX beast.

John

[rusto]

John R: to your #2 comment - there's two components to that $60, one is the base reg fee of $40 that "pays for the even" and this one being a C2 event has higher costs due to what the UCI requires them to have to be eligible (showers, amount of fencing, etc). The other component the extra $20 for day-of is more of a nuisance fee, or penalty, to dissuade day-ofs and to encourage people to reg early. It's such a slog on the reg table at a big event like that to have day-ofs slowing things down. Sure, it adds to the event's "profit" but I'm confident that is not the motivation for setting it so high.

[pace21]

It was $46 (entry fee) and $14 (day of penalty).

Also, I learned last year that it is near impossible to drastically affect your starting position by racing in your category at Verge races. Even if you beat the predictor by 10-20 points, there are so many guys (and so many slow guys) that the points are smeared out and averaged in such a way that it's a big uphill battle. The way to do it is to "race up" at smaller races (Quad, sucker brook, MRC, etc.) i.e. race the masters or elite race -- aka "points dope" -- it works.

[swawersik]

Also, I learned last year that it is near impossible to drastically affect your starting position by racing in your category at Verge races. Even if you beat the predictor by 10-20 points, there are so many guys (and so many slow guys) that the points are smeared out and averaged in such a way that it's a big uphill battle. The way to do it is to "race up" at smaller races (Quad, sucker brook, MRC, etc.) i.e. race the masters or elite race -- aka "points dope" -- it works.

Or... you can volunteer to help run the MRC race and get a front row call-up in the process.

(See how I did that Russ? And I didn't even have to use Twitbook in the process.)

[Bruce]

Uh, so my wife is filling in for me at registration, does that count?

[PJ McQuade]

Smaller races are definitely the way to hop up on ye olde race predictor. It took me two seasons of scrubby starts to sniff the front but worth it nonetheless. I was "that guy" at PVD Sunday. Missed my staging call, walked through the first three rows and lined up row 4, where I would have been staged anyway. I said in a very authoritative voice "I'm Chris Pare and have Verge points, move please" and the seas parted. Truth be told though I was stunned no one gave me a hard time. Luckily I found a familiar face and semi-open spot next to Ian Odell who kindly let me in.The course was super awesome, like Chris said. I'm really lazy at race reports lately and will stick to being lazy but will share one last funny experience. Lap 3, I'm with a stretched out group of 4 fighting for 30th, I pass a dude who asks me very politely if I can slow down please. This didn't seem smart in the midst of competition so I sped up! Minor triumph was spritning past a CF kid who passed me on the last lap who out cornered me but couldn't hold it on the power sections. This felt especially good after a different CF kid beat me to the line at Night Weasels. Teenagers attempt to conquer me at work everyday so I don't like when it happens on weekends!!