So take that, world. Oregon is getting all up in your CX grill with a high-school development league:

http://bikeportland.org/2010/06/21/obra-to-debut-high-school-cyclocross-program-this-fall/

Sugahara says the High School Training and Racing Program will be organized like a “club sport” with volunteer coaches and trainers. He envisions each participating school would field teams of 4-8 students and training clinics would be held on school grounds.

“Our main goal is to make this a game-changer for cycling throughout the state by legitimizing it as a major high school sport like football or basketball.”
— Kenji Sugahara, Executive Director of OBRA

OBRA plans a three-race series in 2010 that will happen in September, with the inaugural championships occurring over Thanksgiving weekend. Also working on the project are Rick Potestio, John Myers, and Brad Ross — all of whom have been instrumental in developing the popular Cross Crusade into the largest cyclocross series (in terms of participation) in the world. Potestio, Myers, and Ross are working on a video and workbook that will serve as a coaches handbook.

As cool as this is, I worry that attendance at each round of the Cross Crusade will soon grow to the point that the races will take over the entire weekend, instead of just Sundays. Is that a bad thing? For the cyclocross dogs among us, not so much. But the families? Won’t someone think of the families??

…to start riding cross bikes, which is exactly what I did with the Freewheel crew & friends yesterday morning. I’m in the black kit on the far right in case you were wondering, which you probably weren’t.

Freewheel & friends summer CX ride (pic via dfl brad)

The ride, besides “getting the band back together,” also shook the cobwebs off the race bikes (mine had been hibernating since mid-December) and reminded everyone of the various things, both physical and mechanical, that could use a little work leading up to the season. Three hours, three flats, one exploding chainring and a high-speed endo later it seemed like there was more than enough to get sorted out before those first races this fall. That goes for the rest of you, too - do that tune-up you’ve been putting off and finish all those intervals or face the consequences! 

Big thanks to Jason & co. at De La Paz Coffee for letting us meet up at their HQ and providing the pre-ride caffeine.

On a sadder note, the Livermore CX series is dead until further notice.

- Nick in SF

I’m pretty sure this was made in Oregon

(click on pic for vid)

-buddhabelly

Oregon Syndicate

Over Memorial Weekend, Allen Goldbeck and I made the 6.5 hr drive from the Portland Metro to Spokane, WA for the 24hrs of Round and Round race. We met up with 3 other guys (all friends of Allen) who made a similar 6+ hr drive from the Seattle/Tacoma area of western Washington.

Friday Night (5/28):

Set up the tents and as a group pre-rode the course with no lights. We made it back by 9pm and could still see which one might think portends of beautiful weather…not so.

The course:

• distance: 14.7 miles
• technically: moderate…pretty rocky at times as evidenced by the number of flats seen
• climbing: 7-8 of them but none longer than 0.25 miles
• aerobically: strenuous
• time to complete: our 5-person team was as fast as 1hr 8min up to 1hr 26min
• average speeds: our 5-person team ranged from 9mph up to 13mph
• attendance: 700+ racers (one unicyclist)

Crossniacs

Saturday/Race Day (5/29):

Race started at Noon with a Le Mans started that I got volunteered for. Why not? I can start my ‘cross training early!

racked before the Le Mans start

cx training

Riding up the hill I just ran up :(

Allen HTFU!

Sunday (5/30):

After some calculations, we figured we could try to get all 5 guys 4 laps each, so 20 total for the team. Come Noon on Sunday, we were only able to get 19 so our anchor Doug didn’t get a chance but he was cool just sleeping and drinking

Nite Rider on hand

Where we handed off

My lap times:

1. 1:12:07.143 at Noon on Saturday (this included the Le Mans start…so not bad)
2. 1:09:35.629 at about 5:30pm Saturday evening
3. 1:19:25.089 at 12:45am-ish on Sunday (this was my only night lap and one I’ll never forget…so beautiful…and only the 2nd time ever I’ve mtn biked at night)
4. 1:15:27.249 at 7am-ish on Sunday (I was really happy with this lap time as I was fighting cramps in both quads, my back and my left arm)

Over the course of the race, we each could not have gotten more than 4 hrs of sleep. I know my figure was more like 2.5hrs

-will

Pac NW AllStarz

Crossniacs Oregon Syndicate