Cyclocross Nationals: My Racing

Cyclocross is fantastic.  The most wonderful thing.  I can think of almost no better way to spend a weekend.  Cyclocross bikes are versatile.  You can spin them around in a complex circle for an hour, or you can throw on some bottle cages and hunt for the loneliest dirt road in the vast mountains to the west, or you can rally them around the smooth singletracks out in the plains.  If a non-biking friend asks what kind of bike they should buy I'm more likely to tell them a cyclocross bike than anything else.  Needless to say I was very excited when I found out that we were moving to Colorado on the eve of Cross Nats coming to Boulder.  I would get to attend another National Championship, and I could sleep in my own bed every night.

I'm in a precarious when it comes to racing Cross Nats.  I'm a Cat. 3, and my racing age is 27.  Therefore, I am only eligible to race the Men's Non-Championship 10 - 29 and the Men's Singlespeed Open.  They are both on the same day, so I decided to do them both...

The 10 - 29 race was... interesting.  I swear I was the oldest person in the field.  I lined up on the left side of the grid and I swear I could see clear over every head to my right... plus I had to tilt my head down to meet anyone's eye.  Needless to say, it was weird.  But, of course, since this is Boulder, all those kids were a hell of a lot faster than me.  I got gaped pretty good at the start, and managed to avoid the overzealous-junior-caused crash that happened right under the finishing arch.  On the climb up the backside of the course Kyle blew by me, as I expected.  On the ensuing descents/climbs/stairs I went around many small people who didn't have the experience/leg length to move quickly through the trick bits.  And this course was half trick bits.  Quite frankly it was the best cyclocross course I've ridden all season, and I know I've said that a few times already.  There was mud, oh glorious mud!  I could slide corners, and the off camber after the stairs (Pete's Plunge) actually required some foot out Fred Flintstone action (Enter high and dive, dive, dive!).  I was a little nervous at first since it had been more than a year since I have thrown my bike at a muddy parcours, but the mudder in me quickly resurfaced.  The rest of the lap was the usual flowy Valmont stuff.  There was another small set of stairs, and a set of barriers for your added dismounting pleasure (unless your name is Cody Kaiser).

Goddam kids get off my start grid!

Out to the flat part of the lap.

5280 Stairs.  Gloucester has it's beach and it's rock and Valmont has these bad boys.  They make flat-landers cry.

Blue skies, mountains, and slidy-ness.

Same as above. 

A happy and mud-splattered Holeshot.

I have a hard time racing your juniors, especially ones as small as I was racing against.  My natural instinct is to ride behind them and encourage them to do better, not put them in the tape around the next corner.  It took me a lap and a half to figure out that I could race them and be my normal self at the same time.  I ended up 34th, which put me just outside the top 50%.

The Singlespeed race was a different kind of fun.  The kind of lining up at the back and chilling out with 100 of your best friends you don't know yet fun.  I knew that it would be tough for me to last the full 40 minutes in this, as there were a bunch of pros lining up in front of me.

This counts as a SSCX bike, right?

Carebear. 

The top tube scoot, soon to be followed by the dive and rip.

It went about as well as I expected.  I got 80%'ed after 2 laps, but it was still cool.  I had a great time racing.  I went to work for the next two days, and returned for the big shows on Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday I assisted Darth Auer in the pits for the U23 race.  Sam O'Keefe was our man, and he pulled a solid 14th place.  Sunday I worked the pits for Sam again for the Collegiate D2 race, which saw Sam finishing the first lap sitting comfortably second wheel.  When the group next came towards Pit 1 Sam was no where to be seen.  Auer and I exchanged worried looks, and Sam came into view a few seconds later, down in sixth or seventh.  He changed bikes telling us that he rolled his front tire and something about his drivetrain as he sped off.  After putting on a spare wheel (side note: Sam started the race with Chicane's front and rear, and after pitting got Chicane rear, Limus front, which was probably the perfect tire combo for the quickly drying, but still slick off cambers of the course), and having the Shimano neutral support check his drivetrain (no issues), Sam got his A bike back and started absolutely charging through the field.  Rarely have I seen such inspired racing.  After pitting to get his A bike back, Sam looked absolutely focused each time past, and quickly made his way up to second.  Unfortunately, there was not enough time to close the 20 sec gap to first place.  It was a fantastic race to be a part of.

I'll post up some pictures of the Elite races later.  Now, I'm going to bed.

The Race That Should Technically be Called "Elevation Adjustment" Cross

Did my first cross race since the beginning of November over the weekend.  I figured that, since I was racing Nationals, I should have something in my legs other than long rides in the mountains on my singlespeed.  Mother Nature also allowed me to tick a box off my bucket list: race cross in the snow.  Now, let me clarify.  I've raced cross while it was snowing before (Rockville Bridge Cross in 2008 or something), but I have never lined up for a race with six inches of snow on the ground and more falling out of the sky.

Keep vest on as long as possible

It was pretty cool.  The venue, while not very exciting, made good use of their hill sides, putting a bunch of 180s of various size on them to add some turns to an otherwise, drive-your-bike-straight-through-the-snowpack race.  The previous fields had worn a nice singletrack-width line in the track which, as long as you didn't stray from it, provided very good traction.  It was like railing a nice singletrack on a soccer field.  The first day I got a second row call up.  I'm always surprised when I get call ups out here.  I feel like I've only cracked the top 50% a few times, so why should I be in the second row?  I don't know how they work it here, as I'm currently ranked 87th in the BCR Cross standings.  Maybe they do it all by reg order, or by whose bike is the most red... Either way, I've gotten call ups, by name, at a bunch of races this year.  I only wish I had the legs to do them justice.  I don't think I'm going any slower than everyone in the corners, or even on climbs anymore, but any flat sections I just get gaped.  Anyway...

On Saturday I pulled a solid DFL, but I always have fun racing cross, and this time was no different.  I don't have the fitness to "race" Nationals on Wednesday, but I'm going to anyway because I like racing at Valmont and I love racing at Nationals (of any kind).

These snow-covered road sections were the sketchiest part of the course.

I probably could have ridden this but, but it felt faster to run.

The most pro I've looked all season?

Sunday's race was a bit of a different animal.  Same venue, and same course, but in the opposite direction.  The old Mercer Cup switcharoo.  I think it actually made the course more fun, although that may have been the ten degree colder temperatures and the lack of consistent snowfall (high on Saturday: 18F, high on Sunday 9F).   Everything felt even more grippy on Sunday.  There were only 6 racers in the U35 Cat. 3s, so they started us with the 35+ Cat. 3, making for a total field of 15.  People must have been severely dissuaded by the cold.  All in all, I ended up 4th, which is as close to the podium of a cross race as I've been since the last Iron Cross Lite.  I felt pretty good, even though I was 2+ min out of 3rd place.  Old me would have said "bah, there were only 6 racers, 4th isn't that great."  New me says "4th is 4th whether there are 6 of 126 racers;" I'll take whatever ego boost I can get.

Since Jonathan Page decided to show up on Sunday, I decided that I should watch his first race in the US in a few months, so I stood around the Oskar Blues beer tent, drank tasty beers and watch the fast guys and gals.  It was a cool preview of Nationals, and Driscoll was on fire.  I'd also like to tip my hat to Page.  Once he had lost contact with the Raliegh guys (Krughoff and Driscoll) after a few bobbles and crashes and had third place locked up from an ever-charging Justin Lindine, he chilled out and thanked the folks in the beer tent for coming out and cheering the last two laps.  I don't think I've ever seen an top end elite racer do that; I'll definitely be cheering loudly for him next Sunday.

Gould rolling with a ton of daylight behind her.

Page all decked out in his American flag for at least another 6 days.

Honey Badger.

Driscoll with the W.

Racing in two races at Nationals on Wednesday: Non-Championship 10-29 (i.e. I'm going to get beat by a bunch of Juniors), and the SS open (i.e. I'm going to get beat by a bunch of pros).  It should be good fun.  The Race Predictor has me in 43rd and 93rd respectively, so my real race is against that.

Burning Thanksgiving Calories

Saturday, after two Thanksgivings in a row (one cooked by my aunt and one by my lovely wife), I headed about an hour into the mountains for a big bike ride with some people I didn't know.  I knew I was setting out for an adventure because we were going to be riding from the 92fifty bike shop in Black Hawk down to Centennial Cone for the last lap of the season and back.  The ride was planned to be about four hours.  The night before I walked into the basement to decide what to ride the next day.  I could either rebuild a set of pedals, reseal a set of wheels, bleed a brake, and tune a drivetrain in order to ride my comfy geared bike, or just throw my singlespeed on top of the car and leave.  Seemed like an easy choice.  The next morning, the singlespeed went on top of the car and I rolled out.  Big mistake...

Waiting for me at the top of the first climb.

It soon became apparent that I had brought the wrong horse for this course.  It was all good, though.  There's no sense in complaining about it, and I had made my decision.  Suffer on...

Third to last climb of the day.

Much walking was done.

After mashing 20 to 30 RPM for the previous 6.5 hrs, I finished up the ride at Jonathan Davis' house, instead of riding the last two or three miles (uphill) back to the shop.  It was quite a fantastic ride.  The Centennial Cone singletrack was pretty cool.  It will definitely be worth going back there once it opens again on June 15, 2014.

The best part of the ride was all the great people I met.  It's good to meet people who love doing long, hard rides.  I'm really looking forward to riding with them soon.  This will be a good way for me to get some fitness over the winter.  I'm glad I found a group to ride with, but next time I'll bring a few gears.

Weekend of Not Racing

I love racing my bicycle.  The thrill of lining up, even if at the back, with a bunch of like minded folks and laying it all out for really nothing more than the glory of it sometimes keeps me up at night.  Racing is definitely one of my favorite things to do, and I will usually choose it over other possible weekend activities.  This past weekend, though, was different.  After some less-than-lackluster performances as the previous weekends bike races, I needed to do something different.  I changed my whole routine that week...

Monday evening I did a short spin on the trainer and a bit of yoga.  Wednesday I put myself through The Sufferfest's "Rubber Glove" video, which consists of a good warm up, then a 20 min FTP test.  I'm a big fan of using data to inform my training.  It's something that I haven't been doing lately (the training part, not the data part), and I need to get back into it.  A good FTP on which trainer workouts will be based is going to be beneficial for me.  I have a feeling that I'm going to be spending a lot of time on the trainer this winter; there doesn't seem to be much in the way of night MTBing around here.  Quite frankly, I'm not even sure if it's legal in most places.

Saturday I got out on my cross bike and did a lap of the Marshall Mesa trail system with Kyle.  It was a super fun mix of doubletrack, walking paths, and primo cross bike singletrack.  It's very close by, so I'll definitely be back there regularily (maybe with lights after work).

Marshall Mesa Singletrack

2014 Corvette Stingray at a posh hotel in Boulder

Sunday my work colleague/new riding buddy and I threw our singlespeeds on top of my can and headed of Boulder Canyon to Nederland to ride the West Magnolia trails.  West Mag is one of the more popular trails in the area, and now I understand why.  It's not your typical front range stuff.  There are trees, and sometimes you have to ride in between them.  It's a pretty cool place and the 2 hrs we spent riding there didn't even scratch the surface.  Once I get a new geared squishy bike up and running I will spend a super long day just exploring.

Informative Trailheads are nice.

We hiked up some snowy south-facing slopes for a while.

Persistent crank arm loosening syndrome.

Not what the actual trails looked like.

There's a rider in  there somewhere...

The Continental Divide felt so close.

Small Races

I have to be honest, small cross races still sort of weird me out.  I don't know what it is, but the fact that I was completely alone in both directions for about 15 min of the race on Sunday (that's a full third of the race) gave me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I'm used the solitude in a 100 mile mountain bike race; I've spent many hours turning pedals through the woods without another soul in sight except for the rocks under my tires and the trees around me.  The silence there stills me and focuses my riding.  Even the thought right now, while sitting comfortable at my dining room table, of being alone in a cross race gives me chills.  I feel utterly alone, never mind the few screaming fans around me.  It's then that how slow I'm going really sinks in...

I've only ridden a few times since the Boulder UCI weekend, mostly due to work.  I'll definitely have more work travel in the future, but for the most part, the new job is pretty relaxed.  If you've watched my Strava you'll see that I've gotten out to some new MTB locations with one of my new coworkers.  He's a strong rider, and a MUCH better downhiller than I am (his 7 in travel bike doesn't hurt).  I'm really looking forward to learning a new riding style from him.

The Schoolyard Cross (Saturday) and the Feedback Cup (Sunday) were the small races in question this weekend.  Schoolyard was supposed to be at Research Park, but was changed to the Boulder Res a few days before the race.  I am not a fan of the Boulder Res, primarily because of the goatheads and secondarily because it's just a bunch of 180 turns in a loose, sandy field.  Zero flow.  Pedal, pedal, coast, turn, pedal, pedal, coast, turn, etc.  It's not even worth sprinting out of them like you usually would, because there's always another turn ten or less meters later.  I do like the telephone poles to hop (they ran them a little differently this time), and in general I like the beach sections.  I will say that this race made much better use of the beach than the Cross Classic did.  Including two man made piles of sand at the end that you had to run.  I managed to ride to the corner before them on my third try, but it was much, much slower, so I ran it for the rest of the race.  I probably lost a ton of time that way, but after almost making it and endoing at the corner on the first lap I had to prove to myself and the loud fans sitting there that I could do it.  I had on/off periods during the race (on whenever I had someone to race, off whenever I didn't), but overall I had much more fun than the last time I raced at the Res.  Mrs. Geology's pictures below:

Dug out the ol' Stormtrooper skinsuit because it's rad.

Hopped some logs.

Rode by a nice lake.

The guy announcing was giving me a whole lot of love for being in last and rocking a white skinsuit.

Feedback Cup was a whole different story.  This was at the same venue (in Golden) that the Back to Basics Wednesday night races are held at.  Same course as well.  I like the course.  There are sections that are just sandy turns in a field, but there's a cool downhill/uphill flowy off camber section that I feel good and can just flow through.  There was a really cool section with a quick downhill, a corner, and  a steep up (a run if in traffic) that I felt good on, as well as a really fun steep up followed by a steep down (almost a jump, but a little too steep) with a fast downhill entrance that I would gain a few seconds on each lap.  Unfortunately, my legs weren't up to the task to what my bike driving skills could do; I was spit out of the back of the 3's, then spit out the back of the 35+ 3's.  Definitely not my best race ever, and by the end I barely had the power to soft pedal around the course.  It was a beautiful day, though, and I was really happy to be out riding my bike.  Pictures again:

I pulled this guy around for a while...

But eventually he rode away from me.

It was surprising how many people ran this little up.

I thought I would be traveling next week, but it looks like I'll be home, and traveling the week after.  I'm hoping to get in some cool mountain biking this weekend.  There are cross races to do, including a Cyclo-X series race, but I'm feeling doing some cool MTB rides, so I think I'll do that instead.  Gotta keep it fun...

Boulder Cup Weekend

The Boulder Cup weekend (which includes the Colorado Cross Classic) was really my first chance to test my legs against a regular East-Coast-Cross-Sized field.  I've done five or six races so far this year, and the Cat. 3 field (which races with the Cat. 3 35+ field) has averaged about 30 - 40 people; pretty small coming from sold out 120 + rider fields at Charm City and Gloucester.  The CCC field was a bit bigger than that, but somehow I still managed a 2nd row call up.  I don't know what I'm doing differently out here, but I've been getting call ups (by name, not just number) for the last few weeks, usually landing me in the 2nd or 3rd row.  That's not that much, though, considering a lot of the races are only four or five rows deep.  Any way, at the CCC, I decided it would be a good idea to bash my face into the ground on a warm up lap, resulting in a swollen hand, and a busted helmet.  In trying to hop a small log I took the wrong line which put my front wheel right in a wheel-sized hole when it came down.  Since my rear wheel was in the air, I went straight over with my hands still on the bars.  My helmet sacrificed itself for me, as now four days out I don't have any lingering head ache or anything.  I took the impact straight on my head, and probably saved myself a broken collar bone since my hands were still on the hoods.  With a borrowed helmet and very shaken nerves, I had a very good start (my best of the year, top ten onto the dirt).  After the first few turns, I found myself squirted out of the back.  I had absolutely no confidence in the loose sandy/gravelly corners, so backwards I went.  I managed to clean the logs that I crashed on the whole race (taking the correct line), and it was stupid easy.  I finished the race a lap down and somewhere near the back, but I made it through, and that was the important part after the crash.  I then got on to the more important business of drinking beer and yelling at faster people.

Rotten finds a friend

The women ride a poorly made rhythem section

Of course...

Men's start

The big sand pit w/ the Men coming up the hill.

The Men through the sand near the end.

The actual Boulder Cup went much better.  The gravel road start into a gravel corner scares me, so I hung back, then gained as many places as possible on the climb.  I was surprised to find that my legs were feeling great!  That, combined with the fact that this was the best course I've raced out yet, made this my best race of the season so far.  There were ridiculous bumpy downhills with absolutely no fast line (even the pros looked awkward coming down this one), steep ups, and off camber sections.  It was pretty great, and if the Nationals course is anything like it, it will be great as well.  Needless to say, I had a really great race, including winning a completely flat sprint for 32nd place by a margin that I'm sure the officials had to go to the finish line camera to decide (maybe a tires width at most).

I do have some issues with Valmont Bike Park as a CX venue, though.  The course is very high quality, but logistically, the place is a nightmare.  There is very little expo/team/vendor space, so the spaces they have are sold off at very high prices.  That is not as much of an issue as the parking.  Valmont has two small lots, one of which is taken up my pro teams.  For the Boulder Cup (and the Cyclo-X race before it), the racers were parked in lots about 0.25 mi up the road in a large business park.  This is not ideal, but it worked for those two races since they were on the weekend.  I'm trying to stay optimistic here, but I can't see how this will work for Nationals for a few reasons:

1. Boulder Cup was decently large, but Nationals will have two to three times as many racers and spectators.  Since there were barely enough spaces for the racers/spectators at Boulder Cup, how will they fit all the people that come to Nationals?
2. Nationals happens on two days during the week as well. Where will people park when the people who work in that business park have to come to work?

Anyway, I digress.  I hope that the organizers/USAC have a plan to deal with this.  On to pictures of the Elites...

You can barely see it, but Compton crashed at the top of the descent and still had 15 seconds at the top of the stairs.

Woodruff was on fire this weekend...

Yannick drilled it on the front for a while.

I really enjoy the new I-can-win-a-race-from-where-ever-I-want-to Powers riding style.

Some Men climb a set of steps.

Hopefully I'll get some more racing in this weekend, since it's been a while since I've been on a bike.

Later!

Enduro vs. Cyclocross

I had a few thoughts on the nice road ride I just got back from.  I'm going to put my armchair physiologist hat on for this one.  It seems like Enduro and Cyclocross require a lot of the same types of stuff...

For those of you who are still living in 2011, Enduro is a type of mountain biking racing that involves untimed transfer sections (usually climbs) and timed special stages (always mostly downhill).  Think of it as that road ride with your buddies where you rip each others legs off on the climbs, regroup at the top, and enjoy a nice chill, conversational pace until you get to your next major climb, but in reverse.  Instead of spreading this out in a bunch of text, I'm going to distill this into a table.

Seems legit, right?  Other than the obvious difference that Enduro involves flying down mountains at stupid speed over rocks, drops, and whatever the trail throws at you, and Cyclocross involves flying around muddy off camber corners on skinny tires with 150 or so of your great skinsuit-wearing buddies, a lot of the same physical efforts seem to be involved.  At least according to my un-informed opinion...

In case you haven't heard, Ms. Geology (soon to be Mrs. Geology) and I are moving.  Currently we live here:

Image courtesy of our great eye-in-the-sky LANDSAT 8 and the USGS.  Further images available at http://landsatlook.usgs.gov/ 

We are moving here:

Image courtesy of our great eye-in-the-sky LANDSAT 8 and the USGS.  Further images available at http://landsatlook.usgs.gov/ 

In case you're extremely geographically challenged (in which case, go buy yourself a damn map and study up), that's the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay and the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains.  One is the place we live now, and the other is the place we are moving to.  It is very exciting, and all very sudden.  A few weeks ago, frustrated by the lack of job opportunities in the PA area (were we originally wanted to move), Alyssa and I decided to expand out job search.  We looked at a map,immediately ruled out a vast swath of the country, and settled on Colorado.  Within the span of a week, Ms. Geology had applied for, interviewed, been offered, and accepted a job teaching Earth Science at a high school outside of Denver.  It's pretty crazy.  We're more than 50% packed, at least according to my rough approximation of how much volume of the boxes in our living room would take up if they were unpacked, and how many shelves in our apartment are empty.  It doesn't feel like we're getting anywhere, though, since all the shit is still in the apartment.  It's kind of frustrating, but it is what it is.  Two weeks until the big move... nine more days of work.  Most of them will be in the field, and it's gonna be pretty hot out for the next two weeks.  Getting my pre-hydration on right now...

I'll probably update again once I'm in Colorado... a lot to do before then, ya know???