Making history

First race at the Eva Bandman cyclocross park in Louisville, home of the 2013 world championships.

I really like the USGP races. So far this is our second year at the Derby City race. John and I left on friday and headed down to the race. Once we found the park, thanks to Ryan Trebon being our personal tour guide, we got a few laps in and met up with the Rouge racing guys. They were our hosts for weekend and a big thanks goes out to the entire team for making us feel at home.

The saturday course was quite short but had us off the bikes quite a bit. We decided that rather than racing in the 2/3 race with probably 200 guys we would race the singlespeed race with 20 guys. I was off the bike about 6 times each lap, there was sand, some soggy hills, one barrier section with a tricky hump right in front of it, and super steep run up right after a tight 180 that some of the pros actually rode. I didnt have the right gearing so I got blown away on the start and got lapped by beard guy, of course beard guy also raced the pro race, so I guess getting lapped by him wasnt so bad.











Day two, the course was a bit longer and I had it in my head to ride all the hills that I ran the day before. I did awful, I dropped my chain on the first lap, and was feeling pretty tired from the day before and got lapped by beard guy on the last lap. I was thinking that I havent been on my singlespeed since like mothers day, and I was feeling it. I didnt even get my bike put together until tuesday, so I guess one dropped chain isnt too bad.











Overall the weekend was a lot fun. John did good even though the results were all messed up. Wissink won the leaders jersey for the masters 35+ race which was really cool seeing him put that on. The wolverine and rhino guys all did good and Michigan was well represented. It is always fun doing the out state races and hanging out with all michigan racers.

Next up is vets park which is one my favorites, now I just need to shake this stupid cold that I have before the weekend.

Cross Season

So far there hasnt been much to talk about, well at least not anything good. The season started at waterford, day 1 just hurt. I ended up way at the back of the B race, and was pretty cooked 30 minutes into the race. Day 2 at least I felt better, but my results were not much better.
The Ronde Van Stony was a fun race, it hit a lot of the roads that I train on and some of the trails at stony. About 4 miles into the race I lost my front brake, which really wasnt that much of a big deal just had to take some of the turns a bit slower than I would of liked. I was riding pretty good, but got stuck out in the wind pulling for longer than I wanted on area of the course that I didnt want, and got dropped and pretty much rode by myself for quite a bit of the race.
Munson wasnt really a race I was looking forward to. I got a pretty crappy start at the back of the field. My first lap was the slowest and the rest were pretty consistent and faster, so at least that was something. I finally felt like I could race for the whole 45 minutes and was able to go forward in the race instead of going backwards.
This last weekend John and I made the trip down to Cinci, for the UCI 3 day festival. I was really looking forward to racing cat 3 35+ instead of cat 2/3. I only ended up racing 1 of the 3 days though. Saturday on my second lap I came off a curb onto some pavement and blew out my tubular tire, I actually almost crashed because when I landed the bike wanted to go sideways, but I was able to keep it upright. Why they didnt make a little ramp is beyond me, there were two decent drops off a curb that they should of done something with. So this happens just before the start line, so I figure I should run to the pit and get my other bike. Sure I might get last place, but at least I will get some riding in. So I start running, run through the start, run past the Kona riders Trebon asks if I need anything I respond with a wheel or a beer, they laugh, run through the sand, run up the hill, and back down, get a brownie hand up, run on to the finish straight, the pits are just past this, and the race official pulls me off the course. 3.5 km of running for nothing. Well not entirely I got two nice blisters on my heels as a reward, I take off my shoes and walk back to the car in my socks because the pain was pretty bad. Sunday I decided not to race, the damage to my heels was pretty bad and I didnt want to make it any worse. So all of that for 19 minutes of racing, not the best return on my investment for sure.
While I am complaining, I dont get why they ran the Cat 2/3, 3 35+, and the 3 45+ all at the same time. I was second on the line, but I was still 90 people from the front. Why not stagger the start by a minute? The first lap was chaos and I had to come to a complete stop multiple times. It was pretty frustrating, and I am looking forward to racing the tailwind races more so than ever.