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.
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| Rotten finds a friend |
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| The women ride a poorly made rhythem section |
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| Of course... |
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| Men's start |
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| The big sand pit w/ the Men coming up the hill. |
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| 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:
- 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?
- 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...
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| 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. |
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| Woodruff was on fire this weekend... |
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| Yannick drilled it on the front for a while. |
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| I really enjoy the new I-can-win-a-race-from-where-ever-I-want-to Powers riding style. |
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| 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!
