_____________Crossniacs________

the count-down begins…. fpa 

What a cool race. As I was rolled into the parking lot I saw this sweet VW 4×4 van from Colorado and it ended up being my friend from Breckenridge, Travis. It was cool to run into an old friend from Colorado.

Cool course with just enough crossy, tech stuff and some power sections and a nasty muddy run-up. The gun went off and Hollywood took the hole-shot and I grabbed his wheel. We hit the off-camber muddy hill and it was chaos. People were going down all over the place, including me. I stayed calm and continued to real in people until I caught SuperStar and we worked together and shed everyone we were with. We took turns pulling and did serious damage. Little did I know we were in 3rd and 4th place…I didn’t know how many guys were up the road since I got caught up in the 1st lap pile-up on the off-camber. 1 lap to go I hit a tree super hard and went down like a pile of bricks. My right shifter was tweaked in and my head was ringing…I hopped up and took off and finished 4th and took home $50 with SuperStar finishing 3rd.

We then watched the pros and once they hit the off-camber muddy hill the Well’s brothers were 1 and 2 and 3rd place went down and caused total chaos. Todd and Troy were gone. The run-up was a wall of people and people were throwing dollars into the mud and those out of contention were picking them up.

We woke up to 2″ of fresh snow and I was dreading the day. I’m not an epic condition guy, but was up for the challenge. I did a lap on a new pair of michelin mud tires that I picked up a couple weeks ago with anticipation of muddy natz. They were perfect. My challenge grifos were horrible in the mud at green acres. The Michelins were like night and day. They shed everything. Things were looking up. I was 2nd row for the start and it was go time. On the first straight away after the start I yelled at SuperStar to get on my wheel and drug us up to the front. We hit the insane run-up. It was so muddy that you could barely get up and were slipping like crazy, this led to a off-camber downhill that spelled disaster for the racers that I watched warm up. People were slip sliding away or running it. I hopped off as did everyone else to run it and I see SuperStar hop back on his bike and ride it dropping everyone and taking the lead. It was awesome to see. I settled in somewhere in around 15th or so and dug deep and begun to pass a ton of people. The mud tires were hooking up on the turns and I would go super deep anytime I could on the straight sections. The ride-up was insanely steep and muddy then we had to go down what we ran up yesterday. It was super sketch. Basically hold on for life and let it rip. I kept moving up and with 1 to go I was solo and closing on the group in front and ran out of time and finished 5th for the day and SuperStar 4th. A great weekend for the crossniacs.

It was surprisingly warm and sunny in Prunedale on Sunday - no arm warmers, embrocation or base layers required. Even the CA natives like me were freaking out! The course was SUPER technical and went over a lot of hardpack singletrack, and passing was confined to two small strips of asphalt and a manicured out-and-back that ran through a baseball field. There was a little bit of everything, except for mud; it was dry as a bone out there, especially once you got out into the chapparal on the far side of the course. My legs felt good and I had an okay ride, but mentally I was a bit scattered. I tried to muscle my way through the technical sections and was generally riding sloppy, and even got punked by a log barrier. I did make it across the finish line in one piece though, which is more than two other guys in my race were able to do - they crashed hard on seperate off-camber sections and had to go to the hospital, one of them by helicopter (get well soon, guys).

So how nice was the weather, really? Well, I had snagged a spot next to two Highway 68ers in the parking lot and when I finally got back to the car after the race they were sitting in the bed of their pickup truck, wearing t-shirts and sandals and drinking beer like it was 4th of July weekend. I even got a bit sunburned. Nuts. Seriously, any description I could give of how nice the weather was wouldn’t do it justice, so just check out the pics (MASSIVE THANKS to all the kick-ass photographers who document the scene out here).

- Nick in SF

courtesy of Steve.Anderson (hope the ankle heals fast!)

courtesy of liveplayride

courtesy of Rick Rasmussen

Saturday 10:00 Basset Creek at the MN states course.

The world’s largest ‘cross series (www.CrossCrusade.com) wrapped up this past Sunday with a romp around the Washington County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro, Oregon. The weather was cold and foggy but no rain to be seen. The course, was flat, long and riddled with chances to contract diseases. Who ever thought that running a race through/around horse livestock stables in the Fall/Winter was a great idea should be shot…and then buried in a horse’s stable.

Either way, Jesse Lopez (J-Bone) raced his enormous carcass in the Clydesdale category, Guy Smith (Smitty) is gonna rest up for the rest of the season and I (Buddhabelly) have decided that racing Single-Speed is where it’s at. Unfortunately racing my Trek 820 Antelope commuter was the worst idea…5 dropped chains and zero frame clearance for tires made for a very exhausting race.

 3 more local races are left:

(1) Kruger’s Crossing Cyclocross - how can you deny the almighty corn maze? www.PortlandRacing.com

(2) Toyota Portland Cup - USGP stops by in December for 2 days of racing at the Portland Int’l Raceway. www.USGPcyclocross.com

Here’s a pic of my run through the rodeo arena at the fairgrounds kicking up e-coli laced water (or what passes for water).

(Please note the buddhabelly…err, the Erik Zabel method of stomach/diaphragm breathing)

I decided to use the 30 minute race as a warm-up for my race. Sounded like a good idea at the time. I forgot one important point - the dudes in the 30 minute race would be going full speed. While I was taking my time strolling up the stairs, a rider came charging past me & clipped my back leg. I caught my right leg on the stair under me, but my body fell to the stair below. I heard/felt a POP & then my right hip was on fire. I stopped racing & looked for Jayne (My wife - who just happens to be a very talented massage therapist). She did her best to get me back on the bike, but my hip was really messed up. Done for the day!! :-/

I stuck around & got some pics & video of the 3rd. & 4th. race. The fans at the stairs were insane. I haven’t seen anything like it in Minnesota.

Eric S.

Here are the links to the pics & the slide show - the video may take a while to load.  Feel free to download what you want.

Slide Show:

http://flickr.com/photos/14375471@N08/sets/72157609186092298/show/

Photo Set:

http://flickr.com/photos/14375471@N08/sets/72157609186092298/

Mikey P - Bronze, Wah - Silver, Dan Casper - Gold

In a word: Frustration.

I got to the course nice and early so that I would have plenty of time to warm up. My race was at 5pm and by the time I got to the staging area the flood lights were already being fired up. I snagged a halfway decent starting position this time, about four or five rows from the front.

First thing the ref says after calling up the top 10 and letting the group fill in behind (I’m paraphrasing): “TAKE IT EASY GOING INTO THE FIRST TURN. It would suck if your race was over before you even hit the dirt. Get down the straight and through the first turn cleanly, then go ahead and race it out.”

You’d think people would take this to heart and make an extra effort not to half-wheel each other . . . but no, two guys touched wheels within fifty yards of the start and went down right in front of me. I locked up the rear wheel and left some rubber on the asphalt, but I managed to stay upright and swerve around them. I actually ended up with a decent position after that because the guys who crashed were near the front and I was one of the first people to come around them. It didn’t last though - two other different people crashed in front of me on each of the up-and-overs on the back side of the course and I ran into the back of both of them. In the time it took me to pick myself up off the ground and untangle my bike TWICE, a large chunk on the group that was behind me had scooted past and most of them I never saw again. I spent the rest of the race working my way up from the back of the field and actually rode well, but to say that I was pissed with the events on the first lap would be the understatement of the season. To add insult to injury, the judges missed my number as I came through the finish (”because it was dark”) and left me off the results!

YouTube here, pics here; photo below courtesy Cyclocross Magazine.

- Nick in SF