Saturday-Chainbiter 9.0

After some decent finishes at Gloucester (18th and 13th) on the singlespeed, I was anxious to put myself and the new ride to the test against the New England scene once again. The only excuse I have left is waning bike fitness, right?

Saturday morning turned out to be cold and rather windy, but the rain managed to hold off until the later parts of the day. Not that I would have minded the rain, but it would have made hypothermia a distinct possibility and made spectating miserable.

After check-in and a couple warm up laps, it was fairly obvious that this was a course that would largely suit my strengths...it wasn't technical at all, and had lots of open room for me to use what was left of my legs. I got staged in 27th, so I was probably 6 rows off the front. Already much more manageable than Gloucester. Of course, staging took far longer than it should have, as beginning Masters riders with high numbers and zipp 404's jammed up the start lanes and couldn't grasp the idea of lining up by bib number.

The start was on a bit of a paved uphill, so proper gear selection was really important for getting out of the blocks quickly. Of course, the best start in the world won't help when you're boxed from all sides...After rubbing elbows and handlebars for the first 100m, things started to open up and I could see the race strung out ahead of me on the initial paved downhill. Time to get to work.

The first major test of the race was how the field would negotiate the left hand turn at the base of the hill. 90% of the transition to dirt/grass was made marginally more difficult by the presence of a curb. In later laps I would use the non-curbed part, but in the scramble for position on the first lap, some careful maneuvering over the curb landed me a handful of places. The rider crashed in the middle of the trail also slowed some racers down a bit. As we hit the first trail of dirt and sizable rocks, I tried to advance my place in an effort to hit the sand pit with less riders around to foul up my line. This was going according to plan until the combination of a strategic bump and lag in pedal stroke caused my chain to drop. Damn.

Lacking a front derailleur to facilitate getting the chain back on, I had to dismount to return my drive train to proper working order. As I repaired this malady, I witnessed 50+ riders pass me. So much for a good start. I was now sitting solidly in the middle to back of a 90+ rider field. Over the next few laps, I displayed my usual brand of frantic riding in an effort to make contact with the front of the race. I passed my way back up to the first third of the race without much incident, oddly enough on the strength of my sand riding and smooth cornering. About halfway through the race, I was beginning to see that there weren't many riders ahead. In my immediate sights was Jordan.

In an effort to quickly make the catch, I took a grassy left hand turn too quickly and had a pretty solid wash out. Right in front of a cameraman. The gap opened up. I spent the remainder of the lap and then some to catch back on, and I made the pass on the difficult uphill section following the first sandpit. After exchanging slobbering pleasantries between labored breaths, I made my way up to catch the several riders ahead. Before not too long, I was told that I was in 3rd position. With about 1.5 laps to go, I could begin to see the second and first place riders. I knew I could reel in at least one of them, if not both. As I made distance on the cyclonauts rider, I lost my left contact lens. Great. This happened once already this season and has happened numerous times in ski races. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it makes technical navigation quite a challenge when one eye is seeing at 20/400. In any case, I made contact with 2nd.

As we passed through the finish for the start of the final lap, I made a strong pass to put myself into second position. I could see the first place rider from Cambridge Bicycles, but it would take a pretty ridiculous effort to pull him in. Following a not-so-stellar sandpit, I still had the cyclonauts rider in tow. That wasn't for long, however, as I dropped him on the extended climb to the top of the course. 2nd place was locked up. Or so I thought.

On the off-camber drop into the field, I heard the familiar sound of a chain in distress and a general lack of resistance to my pedaling at the bottom of the descent. Once again I had dropped my chain at a very critical moment in the race. This time I was slightly more efficient at getting the chain back on, but in my rush I failed to spin the cranks to get everything lined up. Upon my remount and first pedal stroke, I found the chain returning to it's unfortunate position of being NOT on the chainring. At this point, two riders passed me and I could see three more on the way. Lacking momentum, proper vision, and being generally frustrated, I let the places slip by me, and I drifted back to 7th. A final rider attempted to take a place away from me, but I kept him at bay in the final sandpit and put him away in the final uphill stretch. It didn't take much of a charge to make him give up.

The post-race followed with ample bitching about equipment failures and various other excuses, but all in all it was a solid effort and I really couldn't complain. Dealing with the unavoidable (or in my case, fairly avoidable) problems is part of racing cyclocross. Barring those issues, a 2nd place was solidly in my grasp, so I had to be positive about that. Going into Sunday's race, I knew the podium was mine to lose.

More on that when I get to it.