Silk City CX

[pcollins]

12 September 2015 Silk City CX Elite

I staged second row behind Bowden, the eventual winner and had an ok start. I continued to pass people up until about the 20 minute mark when I could see the lead of the race in a 3 man group with two danglers ahead of me by ~30 seconds so I knew I would be racing for 6th place. I could see Niesen and Stowe working together behind me only a couple seconds back. Stowe attacked Niesen and bridged up to me. We worked together to try to hold off Niesen who was a few seconds back and hammering the power sections. Fast forward a lap and Niesen is no longer in sight so Stowe and I start to “cat and mouse”. On the last lap, on a short, steep, rooty drop-off, my chain drops. It took me ~20 seconds to put it back on, which is way longer than it took me the other time I dropped it last year. When I got going again, Niesen showed up but he was fading badly and I easily held him off. I was looking forward to battling it out with Stowe for 6th place because I think I would have beat him. There was no real point in drilling it for the last half lap because I wasn’t going to catch Stowe so I finished 7th/21.
The course was way better than last year’s dust bowl and dry mud course. The ~9 minute lap course featured tight turns on a grass field, pavement, loose dirt trails through the woods with a legit wall of a run up, non-ridable barriers, steps and a small punchy climb 25m to the finish.
This is a good start to the season for me but my body is definitely not used to CX yet… I had lower back pain nearing the end of the race and my legs weren’t used to the running or going all-out for one hour, so I’m pretty sore and fatigued, but happy.

[pace21]

Now let's hear about Quad. Boom!