Minuteman CX Mudfest

[Briana]

The Minuteman CX race is starting to get a reputation for a wet weather event. Hopefully with the new course configuration and general layout it also gets the rep of an awesome event. Who would have thought you could create a European feel to a flat course in central MA. Well, add a quick burst of torrential rain which quickly turns perfect conditions onto a slick gooey mud fest and FREE beer and there you have it. I heard a lot of compliments about the new layout which really seemed to be very spectator friendly. There were a lot of people hanging out in the central area by the food and beer truck late into the afternoon, the picnic tables were a nice touch too.

I heard two complaints/suggestions yesterday.
1. Someone mentioned the volunteer call-ups being an issue, sure it's a nice gesture but with the fast and hectic starts of a cross race it could be dangerous. I'm sure they were just mad they were bumped back a row. Anyone can volunteer and take advantage of that call-up but it seemed everyone on the front row was a Minuteman racer
2. It was suggested that in the larger field races the little horseshoe thing 30 seconds into the race could be eliminated for the first lap because I guess it caused a huge bottleneck. I'm not sure this would help as it would just cause a bottleneck at the next turn. CX always has a bottle neck, the guys on the front love it the guys in the back hate it.

I raced the masters 40+ and finished 5th. Although it wasn't raining during our race the hour of rain before our race made for super slick conditions. I got a good start and even found my self leading as we were finishing up our first lap. I was obviously working much harder than Brant Hornberger as you will see eventually in one of Angelica Dixon's pics. Brant is just cruising right along as pare and I are suffering like dogs in the background. Overall my race went well, the conditions were tough and it was hard to make power in the slick conditions. I was a little disappointed that my CX nemesis crashed twice in front of my on the last lap and I still couldn't get by him. The corners in the grass were so slick it was hard to take advantage of someone's mistake without making a bigger mistake of your own. I will get you one of these day Miles Bilings Now on to Gloucester and Crosstobeerfest.

[pace21]

That's actually really good feedback Brian, we discussed both those topics yesterday and we'll revisit them before next year's event. The muddy conditions actually exacerbated the problem because it enforced a fairly strict speed limit in the corners so it made passing even more difficult in general. But damn it was fun.

As for my race, Brian sums it up fairly well. We rode together for the first lap and then somewhere along the line I made a mistake and got gapped by 3-5 seconds which seemed like an eternity. I dangled there until about the halfway point when the wheels started falling off for me and I bled time and spots until the end. It also didn't help that the officials added a lap so the leaders finished at ~49 instead of ~41 minutes. I held Bart off until the start of the last lap but then he passed me on the hill and dropped me for good. Side note: Richard Fries summed it up fairly well -- there's about a 10x ratio between gaps in CX and gaps on the road which actually sounds about right. A 3 second gap in 'cross is equivalent to about a 30sec gap in a road race, while a 10 second gap in 'cross is nearly as insurmountable as a 1'40" gap on the road largely because the "chase" group can't draft and everyone's already on their limit (and has been since the start of the race). Those extra 10-20 watts needed to slowly close the gap are hard to come by when you're halfway into a 45 minute threshold effort.

Also while it's fresh in everyone's mind please feel free to email your thoughts/suggestions to cx@minutemanroadclub.com -- that goes to Chris/Chris/Mark and we'll take everything under advisement for next year. Seriously.

Things like:
Moving reg closer to the action
Moving the food truck so it doesn't block the view of the course
Trying to find creative ways to add more flat passing zones without adding more hillclimbs
Swapping the elites to midday and moving the 3/4 race to the end

[pace21]

And a huge THANK YOU to all the volunteers! It's staggering the amount of man-hours (and woman-hours ) it takes to hold this event. It wouldn't even be close to possible without all of you.

[cbusick]

Thank you everyone who helped make this race possible. MRC has such a deep pool of volunteers, especially volunteers who know how to do a CX race.
We really raised the bar this year, now we just have to raise it again next year.

As I locked the gate to the fairgrounds I thought, now I can relax and think about something else other than our CX race.
Before I could pull out onto 117 though I got a call from Pare and we started working on ideas for next year.

Some things I'd like to do next year:

Move the kid's course closer to the action. I want it to be somewhere where the kids don't have to cross the real course to get to it, so they can play on it al day, but also close enough to the action that everyone can cheer for them.

Get a large tent on the finish straight next to the WaWa truck for people to hang out in. Maybe this will keep the rain away?

I was talking to Julie Lockhart, impressed that she managed to ride two laps of our course without going down in the mud. She said that she loved it and loved the challenge of finding traction in the mud. She also had a comment about the inverted 'U' Brian was talking about. I was surprised that she actually liked it, and was able to ride it, she just wished it was a little wider to make it safer when there is traffic.

I wonder if we'll be able to use the U again though. The farmer who owns the land over there was having surveying done, and the survey guys were saying he was planning on moving his electric fence out to his property line. GIS maps show that his property line goes all the way to the gravel road the course took after the U. I suspect he'll fence in the U and his property before next year.

If it's going to keep being extreme non-dust conditions we'll have to do some work to streamline the bikewash.
At Rasputitsa they had buckets with water and brushes to knock the worst mud off before you got to the hose. That would help. We might need an additional feedback sports bike rack, or maybe just a couple poles tied to the trees....

[PJ McQuade]

Most fun I've had at a 'cross race in a while!

1. Homefield advantage, lots of friends around
2. Muddy in areas, but fast in others - kept it interesting
3. Front row start = hole shot!
4. Wachusett beer handup into the finish (OK bad call, almost got DQ'd, Jeremy's fault!!)
5. Lost front group but still hung on for 7th
6. Cold pizza binge upon finish

[cbusick]

Madison edited our go-pro footage down to a short video:

https://vimeo.com/237846312

[Mkidd3]

Madison edited our go-pro footage down to a short video:

https://vimeo.com/237846312

Awesome!!!

[davidmccay]

Madison edited our go-pro footage down to a short video:

https://vimeo.com/237846312

Nice!