The weekend of Nov 8-9

Ok, so I fell behind again. Time to catch up.

Beacon Cross:

Long story short- tire pressure.

Most of the course was packed sand, so I pumped my tires up pretty hard (~55psi) for speed. Bad idea. As we started the race, rain was coming down pretty hard and it greased up the corners pretty good. I went down 3-4 times and broke all my rhythm. I did manage to destroy people in the 80m beach run and the "ampitheater of pain", though. The downside of this race was that it destroyed my drivetrain with sand. My cable housing was so caked with mud and sand that I could barely shift for much of the race. I ended up with a 9th place, far removed from the winners. Just a bad day...I couldn't make myself go. Let's forget that race ever happened...

HPCX:

This course was more to my liking, unlike Saturday. I used to think I was at least somewhat competent in sand, but Beacon cross definitely made me doubt my abilities. On Sunday, we were back to a more typical grass circuit. Add in the rain from the previous day/night and we had a bit of mud to deal with. Unfortunately I was still hung up on my crappy technical riding from the previous day, and I wondered if my finish would suffer again. I probably did 3-4 preview laps, and studied some of the technical turns and uphills pretty thoroughly. I guess I'd find out how my mudding skills are.

Naturally I missed the call-up because I was riding, but I slotted myself into the third row, on the outside. Hopefully no one hated me too much for that. In my defense, they staged very early. I heard, "ten minutes to start" and everyone was already set in the grid.

I had a decent start and made my way into the first group, which unfortuntaely was already gapped by Jeff Bahnson, the ridiculous 15 year old who has won every MAC B race this year. The first uphill separated people out a bit, and I moved my way up, slotting into the top 5. As we got into some of the more technical sections on top of the course, I began to realize that I was apparently the superior technical rider (wait...what?). Over the next half lap, I put myself into the gap between Jeff and the chase group of probably 5 riders. For some reason I was very worried about this group of 5, probably because I still cannot process the fact that we are not on the road and group dynamics aren't necessarily (read: rarely) advantageous in cross. So I rode faster.

Over the next couple laps, I began to make ground on Jeff. I noticed that he slipped on a few of the uphills, and I was able to ride them relatively clean. Despite my best efforts to clean/lube the cable housing I still had crappy shifting, so I had to grind my bike up every rise, hoping that it would slip into a more reasonable gear in the process. This was hurting a lot, but I still had a lot of energy to spare. Unbelievable what a difference a day makes.

Finally, with about 3 laps to go, I made contact with Jeff. He was consistently dismounting on this turning uphill section, and I was able to ride it everytime. I'm almost sure it was faster to run that small portion, but when I factored in the energy consumption and the remount time (not to mention the fact my shoes have no traction or spikes), I think I made the right decision. I caught him just after this section, on the final uphill grind before the course descended to the snaking loops below. Rather than wait like I should have, I went right by him. Probably a bad idea. In retrospect, I think he was waiting for me and saving his energy.

I led on the downhill before he probably saw my weakness and came around before the slower, more technical areas ahead. I was slightly gapped, but generally in contact. I knew I was in trouble though. Gah. Nevertheless, I couldn't let the fans down, and I tried to stay up with him.

[Editor's note: People all over the course were zealously cheering for me. I guess Jeff's relatively uncontested win streak has made them hungry for an upset...I was temporarily the great hope...then failed miserably.]

I fought to close/maintain the gap over the next couple of laps before he decided to destroy me in the final lap. I think he put 25 seconds into me over the last time around. In defense of my failure, once he was clear I began to shut it down and focus on staying upright and not losing my 2nd place to a stupid crash or mechanical. I also got mud in my eye. In the end, he won by 30 seconds, but the gap from me to third place was 1:13, so I'd say I definitely had a good performance. I can feel my form coming along and I'm really happy with this race...totally makes my weekend worthwhile after Beacon. Hopefully I can keep it up!

I also won a thing of Heed (subtle melon?) and a $55 Easton carbon fiber bottle cage. I'm thinking of mounting it in my car as a cup holder, because it would look absolutely ridiculous on my dented Specialized road bike. Maybe it will be useful if I go all weight weenie/carbon fiber on the road next year (ugh, road biking...).