Monday, September 17, 2007

Cross Season Kick Off



Finally the season started, I have been waiting since December for it to start back up. This race was a new one this year and turned out be a cool race. I was told the park had all the hills in the entire county, so it was a natural place to host a cross race. This was also my first race on the new bike. I did the practice race with the hopes of shaking all the bugs out the bike last week.

The course featured 2 sets of barriers and one run up these big steps, I think they were seats for the amphitheater. A few of them were pretty big steps!


The course ran us up a sled hill with a set barriers and then on a s-turn there was another set.














The course worked out to be about 1.5 miles.


















It was cold at the start of the race, low 40`s maybe, upper 30`s probably. With a little bit of confusion finding the start line we got all lined up. And then the whistle blew and the pain started. The first lap I settled into 4th place, until the downhill after the sled hill run up. Then the 3 guys in front of me all crashed and I found myself alone in the lead. This didnt last long, I hit the flat section of the course and they were able to close the gap on me. I guess it helped that they crashed on a downhill and able to get up quickly. So the lead group reformed and I was back in fourth place. The race was only 3 laps. The second lap nothing much happened. The start of the thrid lap I started to hear this loud squealing from the back wheel and the bike was not rolling good. I pulled over and the back wheel was hardly turning because the brake was all clogged up with mud and grass. Time I got it cleaned out the 5th place guy passed me and the 6th place guy caught up to me. The thrid lap I worked on catching back up to the guy in fourth place which I couldnt quite do. I gave it a hard sprint at the end but no luck.

I must say I felt pretty good in the race. I should of had at least 4th place and maybe could of done a little better.




Looking forward to the UCI race this weekend and start of the series. Just need to figure out to tweak in the brakes to get a little more mud clearance.

3 comments:

jbhancock said...

Hey thanks for coming out! Glad you had a fun time...fix that brake!! There was a ton of WET grass on parts of the course during the morning (10:00) race, but it seemed to dry out by the later races.

Again, thanks for supporting it; we look forward to putting it on again (BUT BIGGER!) next year!

Cyclocross Magazine said...

nice blog and race report! did you race both days at double cross? we're looking for good photos and race reports. visit us at www.cxmagazine.com

Curt said...

Yes I did race both days. It was a blast. I have a few photos that turned out pretty good. Also check out a link to a buddies page. He is in the process of uploading some video from the weekend.

www.mashersmedia.com

Click the link on the right.