Bloomer CX Race

What a huge turnout today for the Bloomer race. The C class had 38 racers! Last year there was only 29. It is good to see the events getting bigger each year. There were a quite a few mountain bikers that did their first cross race today also. The weather has been very uncross like also, which probably gets more people out to race.

The course was similar to last year, but they added in the short steep uphill on the side of the velodrome, and moved one of the sets of barriers around. It seemed like a combination of the last 2 years races.

Lots of pavement and lots of long straight sections. They mixed in a little bit of trail riding as well, similar to last years course.

This was the biggest week for my workout routine doing the hardest workouts to date. I was feeling pretty good coming into the race, and fairly well rested. I was expecting to do decent, I placed 6th here last year on a similar course. But nothing really went my way right from the start of race. I lined up in the front row, after getting a good warm up in, and was feeling pretty good. The whistle blew, and we were off. It got tight really fast, I was leaning on the guy next to me and then got pinched out and had to drop back. I sat in the pack as we hit the first grassy section, I could see my teammates, John and Todd in front of me a ways so I was working to try and regain contact with them. I was able to get on John`s wheel, but Todd was leading the pack out. Now this was Todd`s second ever cross race, and he got a great hole shot off the line that put him up in first. Myself and John worked most of the race together, we kind of stayed in our group and didnt make up much ground on anyone. Some guys would come around, but it seemed like when they did, it usually ended up in a crash. Speaking of crashes, the downhill on the side of the velodrome was the cause of many of them. This picture was from the B race, but it looked the same in the C race.

Basically we worked together for all the 4 laps changing places with a couple guys and never really could get any separation. We were faster in the more technical parts of the course, they were faster in the flat sprint parts. Finally on the last lap just before the velodrome we decided it was time to get around a couple of guys. This worked really good, John jumped and I followed, we were able to open up a bit of a gap. We hit the trails, and I took a turn hot and ended up getting caught up in the sand it forced me into the woods. Time I got up and going again the guy we just attacked rode past me. I caught Lloyd on the sprint to the line but I couldnt close the gap back up to John. So 4 laps of pain and 20th place. Not really the result that I was looking for. My times were consistent with last year, so that tells me that the field was pretty deep today. I was sloppy though, going over the barriers, and just in general. I didnt feel like i was riding to all my ability.
Oh yeah that Todd guy, he got 4th place in the race. The first TSB racer to place in one of these races. I am still looking for my first one. Maybe lower huron, I always seem todo good there and it is one of my favorite courses.

Next week is stony creek. Get ready to run on the beach, looks like it is going to be 80 that day so maybe I will run a little closer to the water.