Friday, September 28, 2007

Cyclorcross Fun

Last Sunday was the first cross race of the MABRA series. Cross racing is hard and just to make it a little harder, I decided to convert my bike over to a singlespeed :) This race is held up in Baltimore in local city park (Druid Lake I think). I was racing in the C class again this year because I routinely got my butt handed to me last year, so I didn't fee guilty about racing in it again.

We line up at 10:00 and I notice 3 or 4 other singlespeeders in the group. There is no separate class so we have to race with the geared guys. Someone says there are a 100 guys in our class. Wow. We get a brief on the rules and then the gun goes off. It's a dead on sprint up the hill. I get the jump on a few guys but my heart is already pounding. I didn't warm up enough, shit.

We go around 2 times and the pain is starting to kick in. The course is a bit easier than last year. They took out one long run up and a nasty off chamber section that really messes me up. 2 sets of barriers and 1 set of natural barrier. Plus the sand pits. These really suck.

We go by the scoreres table and they have the lap counter set a 4. That's means we have to go around this thing 4 more times. I'm dying. The only races that I sometimes think I won't finish are cross races. Slowly the laps start to drop and I know the pain will be over soon. I've crashed a couple of times but nothing bad. We go by the scorers table one more time and I hear those sweet words "Bell Lap!" meaning the last lap. I try to dig in and get some ground on a the few guys behind me and try to reel in the guy in front of me. I can't quite catch him but I do a sprint to the finish to try. My legs are screaming the whole way. FINISHED

Don't know what place I came in. They kind of screwed up the results of our race. Doesn't matter really, I enjoy it so much. I do know the guy that won our class was on a singlespeed. He was running a huge 48x18 gear combo. My puny 42x18 looks pretty wimpy compared to that.

Few pictures

I love this one. A common site at a cross race.




The sand pits



One set of barriers



I caught these guys as they were remounting. The hardest part in my opinion.



I love to try a race on a fix gear but I can't figure out how to do the dismount. I'll work on it.

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