2011 Rockburn Cross......

With continued homage to the November Warm Weather Belgian CX Gods during the week, the weather for my 5th CX race was temperate.  Rockburn CX is the penultimate race in the MABRA Super 8 Series,  which ends in two weeks.  Thom Moore, a customer of FreshBikes (where I work) and racing nemesis of SW (see KinderKross post for explanation), told me that the course was technical and hilly.  Back handsprings on the hilly....boo hiss on the technical.

After stopping at Starbucks for a large injection of caffeine and a 1+ hour trip, I arrived at the course with a slightly lower level of trepidation.  Quickly donning on a kit, I rode a lap of the course before the  W4 Beginner Race.  The hills in MD were alive.....along with some sand, parking lot space-barriers (to create some sort of stairs), and normal 18 inch CX barriers.  While watching the Men's 4 race, I saw one of the race organizers with a shovel at the sand pit.  Interesting.  He started digging trenches.  Perplexing.  Rows of trenches.  Guess the decision to ride or run would be simple.

After warming up, I rode over to the staging area.  While waiting for the race, SW gave me race tactics...attack on this one particular hill to dishearten the women around me, unclip with my left foot on a particularly sharp off-camber turn, use the flats to hammer......as it turns out, he should have covered my shifters in bubble-wrap, duct taped my right shoe to my foot, and reminded me to clip out with my left foot first before dismounting.  Perhaps even...."Remain upright and you can win this race...."  Have a feeling how this story ends?

As the announcer of my race, I would have called it as:

"And they are off.  With this long straight-a-way, the battle for the hole shot will favor the roadies in this race.  First on the course is the rider from Team Sticky Fingers (TSF), Dana Stryk,  with Tammi Stauffer from Kelly Benefit Strategies close on her wheel.  What will they do through the sand?  Looks like Dana will run...or...wait....apparently she decided to roll around in the sand like a dog at the beach.  Back up.  Now the two are off for the single track section of the course.

Looks like we have a battle on our hands for first and second.  TSF seems to be faster on the less technical and KBS pulls it back on the technical portions.  TSF has had problems with remounting in the previous races, but seems to be improving. 

(Rider thoughts.....#$%#  I can't drop her, I am going to die soon.....)

Here they come for the middle part of lap 3....TSF has been out front the entire race.  Can she hang on?  Will she make a mistake.  (Spoiler:  No.  Yes.  4 more.)

One more time over the barriers...wait...TSF is down.  Apparently she did not heed advice at a CX clinic to ALWAYS clip out with the left foot before doing anything else and she is down and has fallen from 1st to 2nd.  Her bike seems to be having some shifting problems, too.

I am not sure what happened....TSF has fallen from 2nd to 3rd.  From our roving course reporter, we learned that TSF thinks she is in a Cat5 men's road race - yes... by endo-ing after her bike slide out from beneath her on a downhill. Someone should tell her it is better to remain upright.  Bets as to whether she can remain upright on the last lap?

(Rider thoughts after endo-ing...(a) I LOVE GRASS  (b)  I am alive  (c) my bike really does not shift anymore (d) @#$# I lost a spot)

Last lap.  Can she remain upright over the barriers?  Did she learn anything from her catastrophic last lap? Apparently not....she is down again, this time with great style and has dropped her chain.  Can she hang on for third??

It looks like a great battle for 3rd....it is coming down to the wire.  TSF has her shoe flapping in the wind after another crash on the off-cambered hill portion of the course.  Given her high cadence, she must have lost the ability to shift completely.....and is edged at the line for 3rd.....

I ended up on the podium in 4th.  Sort of bittersweet given the first 2.5 laps.....but that is CX racing.  Perhaps of what I am most proud....my remounting was improved and....drum roll please.....I won the prime for first over the barriers....a rather ironic prize!
 

Belgian racing gods....if I may make a request??  I will trade warm weather for fewer mistakes and may I never write a race report during the road season that has the words.....5 crashes in one race!!

A huge thank-you to the organizers of this event - Adventures for the Cure.  Well done!!
 
Another thank-you to my favorite group of mechanics at my favorite bike shop (ok....I work there, so I am biased)....Thanks to Curtis for getting Cookie (my CX bike - I race for a bakery....) back in working order....

Really?  FIVE crashes???

2011 Schooley Mill Cross Race

There are many things that I like about Belgium...chocolate, for example, or waffles in Antwerp. Yum. Things about Belgium that I would not import.....weather. I know....sacrilegious words to say/think/write/dream when discussing CX. Sleet, snow, temps cold enough to generate frostbite worries....that is CX weather (or so I am told). Well.......It appears that all my quiet sacrifices to the "unseasonably warm and dry weather for November Belgium Gods" paid off this weekend. Having to channel my inner Belgium would (thankfully) have to wait. All those sun salutations completed in the direction of Antwerp while surrounded by Belgium chocolate worked well.

Schooley Mill would be my fourth race and my first in the W3/4 field. Schooley Mill is an equestrian center, which translated into a registration area in an actual building with bathrooms and the fear that mud on the course may not really be mud. In the parking lot I saw Margit from Syn-Fit who I would later see win the Cat4 early race with a substantial lead . She described the course as technical without a lot of uphills. Great (said sarcastically). I was able to pre-ride the course twice. For this race there seemed to be more time spent turning than riding straight. There were two sets of barriers, one of which was of an equestrian nature, a set of stairs and several off-camber sections. Only one hill. (note to self: begin petition to US Cycling to require each CX course must have mandatory hills.....lots of them.) Not a lot of mud.

I was happy to race on my new wheels - seeing the benefits of tubular rims, I changed the road tires off of my Zipp 303s.  With only one set of tubular wheels, I followed the advice from the CX clinic in September.....Challenge Limus.....a mud tire that likes pavement.  A huge thanks to SW (refer to older posts for this abbreviation) for gluing them, as well as the race encouragement (and the threat that I would be walking back to DC if my remounting did not improve....really.....).

Our race began a few minutes after noon. I was in the second row and quickly learned the person before me was not the fastest sprinter. The hope of riding off the front was dashed and I spent the first lap trying to get past people, hindered by the turns and my lack of confidence in them. Not long after the start is the first hurdle (literally) - a block of wood long enough to force the field, regardless of height, to take a few steps on top of the structure to get to the other side. As a former step aerobics instructor, this hurdle reminded my of some of the weird nightmares I had.....show up for a class to find my step four feet high and I was unable to teach the class. Now I had to go over the top in cycling shoes carrying a bike and then remount. Times have changed.

After the horse hurdle, the course provided a chance to pass some women on the way to the second barriers. This set worried me the most, since the viewing gallery would be greater and the chances for embarrassment much higher. Added to that, the MC of the event, Bill from CXhairs.com would be adding color commentary. I already calculated that bribery would back fire (i.e. "Hey, Bill. I'll buy you a beer if you only say nice things about me.") since (a) the park was dry and beer was not for sale and (b) sometimes comedic opportunity trumps bribery. I made it over the barriers and remounted without coming to a dead-stop. Progress from last week. No heckling that I heard from Bill.

After a couple of S-turns, the course opened up and provided a chance to sprint out of the saddle, followed the the only hill on the course before a set of stairs. During my pre-ride, I decided to ride up, shoulder the bike and run down and then up the stairs. After remounting the bike, there were a series of off-cambered turns before the paved portion of the course. At the end of the first lap, I was able to gain several spots on the field and found myself sitting 4th or 5th in the race. For the next few laps, Claire, the only junior in the field, stayed on my wheel. At one point, given our age difference, I did think...."so nice to race with my daughter...now how can I drop her?"

Round and round we raced. I did battle at one point with the tape on the downhill before the stairs as I shouldered my bike for the run-up....(apparently my fizik soft bar tap was more than the tape could stand and it reach out and grabbed by handlebars....drat). During this battle, my younger competitor passed me on the stairs, a move I was not able to counter. Luckily, the gap behind us was substantial enough that I only lost one position. On the last lap after the barriers, Claire and Amanda (a co-worker of mine) had a collision and they were in my sights. Sadly, my vision is not the best.....

I ended up on the podium, in 5th.

Ed Sander Memorial CX

There is a Beatles song that is apropos: "Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...." which summarizes waking up Sunday morning to 30ish degrees, realizing I am racing in about 2.5 hours and it would not warm up that much. I think CX in south Florida sounds pretty good. But I digress......

Earlier this fall, I attended a CX clinic with Jeremy Powers, Chris Mayhew and some other guys who make all the technical aspects of CX look like some form of ballet. One of the things I took away from that clinic was to pack everything you own for a race, so that you are prepared for all conditions. Those guys should really watch those comments......I own a lot of stuff. So, 6 pairs of gloves, various base layers, every TSF thing I own, warmers for all of my body parts, embrocation creme....you name it, we had it (except for the gloves to apply the embrocation creme...). All of my things packed in giant plastic PINK box from Target made packing easier. Oops....digression again.

The race was at Lilypons, a water garden/farm in Maryland off of 270 (i.e. Park Mills Drive area). Doug Owens, a friend from NCVC, forwarded a race course preview to a couple of people, one of whom forwarded it to me. All I could remember was left turn, sharp drop off, mud, lots of hill bumps. Chuck handed me my bike after determining what wheels and tire pressure I should ride (even swapped his tubulars from his pit bike so that I could skip using the clinchers that I would have used for the race) and I went to check out the course. I rode to the most technical part....a left turn drop off into mud with a short bump or run-up, also muddy. There were a couple of women standing and looking at it...scared. I thought...well...it's not asphalt, so I took off with lots of speed (for me) and went flying through the tape....ok....less speed. After the mud pit, there were some uphill barriers....ah, my nemesis....the remount....loomed. The rest of the course was partially hilly and filled with serpentine turns. The short bumps would suit me so I thought I would hammer the hills and slow through the turns...especially since by this time my brakes would be, well, not working too well with all the mud and grass. The last half of the course went through the water gardens (well, technically, along side the ponds) before turning onto a road with a slight uphill to the finish. Yippee.....hill finish on a bike with knobby tires!!!!!!

After a few words of encouragement from SW (i.e. you can ride off the front again, just remount your bike a little faster....please......small children are mocking you), we line up. I am in the second row. The first part was the aforementioned slight uphill to the finish line, then a left turn into the hole shot, up a short incline. After than, the course is more downhill before the mud section. The whistle blew, I cut left to get around Margit and Lisa (Syn-Fit), looked to see who was with me, then decided to see if I could repeat last week ride off the front. I did. I had a gap on the field and was able to ride through the technical sections alone. As I finished the first lap, the bakery and our cupcake queen had a shout-out from Joe Jefferson who was the MC. After the first lap, I realized my lead would hold if I could stay on my bike, so I road the hills and straight sections as hard as I could and recovered on the sections with downhill turning. My remounting does suck and the last time over the barriers....I was a little tired.....and hit the rear tire on the first one....started laughing at myself...I have that on tape but will NOT share....:-) After this last time over the barriers and back on my bike, I told myself...."those socks are mine!!" (only prizes and I knew there would be socks)

My lead held....I crossed the line in first place by 48 seconds. I then tried the interesting combination of beer with a waffle......beer good, waffle good, but together??

DCCX and KinderKross

DCCX

DCCX is the only CX race in the District of Columbia. The race is perhaps the largest one in the area, drawing pros and "just let me finish" racers alike. This would be my first race.

All the pearls of wisdom I learned from my CX clinic with J-Pow, Chris Mayhew, Phat Mark, and Dan Tilly was a fuzzy memory. Despite looking at Bill's (In the CX Hairs) video of the clinic, muscle memory was long gone and I had to hope that I remembered
(a) that barriers existed
(b) how to remount the bike
(c) that drafting in CX is not desired and
(d) that riding off the front, if possible, would be a good idea.

After pre-riding the course with my secret weapon (SW for short...translation: someone who can read a course, figure out tire pressure, and give me a leg up on the the field), I reluctantly and nervously went to the line.

I recognized a couple of women from road racing - Margit from Syn-Fit, Amy from ABRT, and I have raced against each other many times, although on asphalt. Starting in the second row, the person who should be in front of me was not there. Yipppeeeee. A clear shot. The whistle blew, and we were off. I moved to the front. Was third for the hole shot. Accelerated. Had a gap on the field....thinking....yea, baby. DCCX podium here I come......when I hit some mud and went flying. The front of the pack caught me and I was able to remount and stay with them. Around a slight uphill corner, someone slowed A LOT and I had no where to go but down. I took someone out with me (always nice to have company....sorry Sunny!) and was off the main pack.

I spent the rest of the race swapping places with Amy and we ended up 8th and 9th (I was the latter). I thought I was about 20th....so 9th was a mixed blessing.

KinderKross

After DCCX, I was excited to try remaining more upright on my bike. My race was later in the day. After watching the earlier races and seeing the mud....from peanut butter to standing water muddle puddle that would delight children....if it was not in the 40s.....I was more than nervous.

SW raced a couple of hours before me and dissected the course for me while I was warming up on the trainer (too muddy to pre-ride and remain dry). At this time, I had clincher wheels, requiring a higher tire pressure, something less than desirable (I learned) for mud. When I looked my bike, she had a different wheel - tubular Zipp 303 front. I wondered why SW asked, "How often do you brake?" I (later) learned that the tire pressure in the rear Zipp (clincher) was, well, rather low. No brakes, little air - I would either win or flat or perhaps ride off the course due to lack of braking power.....

The course had four technical sections: off-cambered serpentine muddy section, barriers, muddy uphill, and a muddy ocean. What to ride and what to run? Since my remounting is highly inefficient, I wanted to ride as much as possible....

The women's fields raced at (almost) the same time. The Cat 1/2/3 women, then a minute later Cat 3/4 women and, finally, a minute after that, my race. I started well, won the hole shot, had a gap on the field and tried to calm my nerves. I tried to ride the off-cambered part but dismounted on the last part. Note to self: run it the next time.

The next challenge would be the barriers.....##@*%%^ are my thoughts about my remounting. Perhaps learning to ride them would be easier (yes, I am that bad). I lost time on each and every remount....ugh.....

The uphill muddy part was fine and I readied for the mud lake. As I came to it, I followed the line suggested by SW - left. The first time through was....COLD!! The drivetrain was coated in mud.....and spectators soaked (ok, that part was really fun). I had a nice lead and did my best to lose it.....a couple of crashes for no reason....but I was lucky and I ended up crossing the line in first place.

CX and mud.....perfect complements....

Reluctantly CX

I love to ride a bike. Until recently, no adjective before the word bike was needed....for my love of cycling was confined to the road. I have spent many kilometers with my three loves, Maria Fig (my Orbea), Victoria (my Cervelo) and Cupcake (my Specialized, the team bike).

If the road goes uphill, I am overjoyed. Downhills are the unfortunate side-effect that comes with loving to climb. I avoid pebbles, grass, etc. while riding. Bunny hopping is something small rabbits do through a field, mud puddles are avoided, and my races occur during a time of the year when snow or sleet is the exception rather than the desired forecast.

A couple of my teammates and several friends race CX and have encouraged me to try it. The combination of peer pressure and an excuse to buy another bike were too much, and before I knew it, I added another Cannondale to my family. A couple of friends registered for a clinic with Jeremy Powers and Chris Mayhew. After watching a couple of youtube videos of CX races (what??? I have to get off my bike and run??), I realized that some instruction may be beneficial.

On a beautiful Saturday, using a teammate's bike, about 70 people played in a field with their bikes - from learning to dismount, remount, carry the bike over barriers, shoulder the bike, ride off-camber - six hours on the bike left me with some strange bruises and the desire to try racing. The first CX race was two weeks away. I had visions of practicing all those skills and then making my CX debut at Charm City in Baltimore.

What is said about the best-made plans??

A little crash on my road bike left me with a badly broken rib, broken hand, cracked helmet (thanks Specialized, for the great head protection) and some great pain medication. CX would have to wait.

Finally, after a few weeks off the bike and painful computrainer session, I could ride outside, and my postponed debut would be at DCCX.