All the Bikes

B2C2 riders stormed the Northeast this weekend, popping up at bike events all over New England. We had people riding up and down Loon Mountain at Nor'easter 'Cross, supporting our sponsor Boloco by riding for the Boloco team at Hub on Wheels, racing the Mayor's Cup, up in Vermont doing the VT 50, and slogging through the sand pit at Suckerbrook 'Cross. We also have Taylor out in Oregon, kicking ass at his local race series. I believe he has three wins under his belt in the B races already?

For my part, I opted to get my cyclocross on in preparation for the Gloucester-Night Weasels-Providence "Week of Bikes" coming up and headed into New Hampshire both days, armed with my bike and plenty of pastries.

Nor'easter 'Cross was about what you would expect from a bike race on the side of a mountain. It reminded me of my collegiate days, where all short track xc courses involved copious amounts of steep gravel fire roads and winding around the bases of ski lifts because, in order to have a downhill course, you pretty much had to be at a ski venue. Then I would go down one of the slippery ditches on the downhills and think, "Oh crap, you are NOT on a mountain bike and you do NOT have fork suspension, do NOT hit that rock!" It was also part of the Nor'easter Festival, which meant that I got some free tech wear cleaner from Nikwax, which was cool, but it was really hard to watch the course in spots because you weren't allowed through, you needed "credentials", etc, which was not so cool. Also, Mike had some issues with a pretty offensive USA Cycling official, but I'll leave that for him to elaborate on.

Side note: Myerson, race promoter, gave the Elite women equal payout to 15 places and the 3/4 women got 40 minutes on the course. I believe we rode as many laps at the cat 4 men. It's the first race this year where I've been able to get the same amount of time on the course as the guys, even though we always pay as much as the guys do. I understand the financial logistics of smaller fields leading to shorter racing time, but I appreciate what he did and I made it a point to travel the 2+ hours to Loon to support this race because of it.

I had a great time, though some parts were a bit more harrowing than others. I hadn't pre-ridden the course and I started out in a reverse holeshot when Lily's wheel decided to EPICALLY FAIL on her (carbon rim just crumpled 5 seconds in) and there was a bit of a hold up behind that. I got back into the flow of traffic and the start is some asphalt onto a short stretch of grass before hitting a nice paved path up. I "excuse me, on your left, pardon me'd" my way up into 3rd by the time we hit the next section of grass and was right on #2 going up the first steep fire road, with Nancy riding for Ladies First pulling away in, well, first. I was still on #2's wheel on the first steep winding descent. I was convinced I could descend faster if I could get around her, but my attempts to take the shorter inside line kept getting blocked. Turn, turn, run up, ride down, back on pavement, feeling pretty good and smooth for no pre-ride. Then we come up to a 180 turn onto a short kicker, which to me looked like we were still going straight under a bridge. This is, thankfully, the only time not pre-riding messed me up. I didn't realize that the tape was part of another part of the course, and when I tried to correct my mistake by turning sharply and shifting quickly, my gears protested. I had to dismount, running my bike while turning my cranks to appease the derailleur gods, and then there was a rock run-up back onto pavement. During my frenzy, Christine of the Crossresults.com team got by me and Stacey Moser, my newest nemesis, was gaining. The next part of the course involved uphills and barriers before another downhill, but the grinding fire road climb was gradual enough for me to consider it the "recovery" portion of the course. I was a bit off of 3rd and maintaining my gap over Stacey when I hit the next steep descent, and felt good on the turns. Lap 2 I decided I was a mountain biker, technical turns were supposed to be my "thing", and I was going to get my 3rd place spot back. Instead of smooth turns, though, I pushed myself to go faster than I could handle and spent some intimate time with the course tape. The first time this happened, I was apparently attempting to get down the hill by sliding under the tape on my butt with bike in tow rather than weaving through it. Stacey got came by me (she's very nice, she checked to make sure I was okay while I was trying to wrangle a post off of my brake cable) and I never got back up to her. Another slide resulted in the girl in 5th coming alongside me but at the steep climb I managed to re-open the gap. At the end of the fourth lap I came across Christine and lunged at the pavement to get ahead of her. Not paying attention to the lap cards, it seemed to me that I may have heard a bell going into that lap and it felt like I had been riding for a while, so I was trying to hold Christine off to the finish. I get to the finish area and hear the bell ringing and my team cheering for me, yelling, "1 lap to go!!!" My oxygen depleted brain thought, What? Does 1 lap to go mean I can stop pedaling now? I kept pedaling until I officially concluded that it did not, it meant that I had better keep pedaling and harder, and so I did, and I managed to ride within my limits and stay upright. Nothing exciting happened after that and I got 4th, getting 2!!! upgrade points in the process. 8 more to go to reach my season goal of moving up to the Elites!

Suckerbrook was the following day, it was a fun and relatively flat course with lots of winding through course tape, 3 dismounts for me (1 set of stairs, 1 set of barriers, and one seriously deep sand pit), a fun fireroad that you could bomb, a log to hop, lots of cheering people along the course and the secret pinch-flat divet of doom. I was in 4th, right on 3rd's wheel, determined to get a podium spot, when I came across the divet. Immediate disaster, heard an ominous "Bunk!" noise, and knew I was in for trouble. I meant to ask Ryan at the start to put his bike in the pit for me but couldn't find him, so when I flatted I started accosting spectators I knew (Glowa, the entire Geekhouse team, etc) to find Ryan by the sandpit and let him know disaster struck. Dan St. G, designer of our kits and the Geekhouse kits as well as Geekhouse team member, generously offered to let me use his bike and when that didn't work (wrong pedals), he sought out Ryan for me. Thanks, Dan! In amongst all of this, I did not realize two things: 1) the pit had neutral support, which meant they would give me a wheel and 2) THERE WERE TWO PIT ENTRANCES AND ONE WAS ONLY A FEW HUNDRED YARDS AFTER I FLATTED! I frantically rode right on by the first pit entrance without noticing, trying my best to corner on a rear flat, and spent half a lap on the windiest part of the course trying to go as fast as possible without rolling my tire and losing any remaining chance of hope. New friend/pastry aficionado Joy from HUP rode by me during this, looking quite smooth in the corners. Nice job, Joy! I get to the pit finally and ran in rambling about Ryan and pit bikes to Mark Bowen while scanning for Ryan's bike, not realizing the neutral support guy was trying to set me up with a neutral wheel. Duh. Ryan came rushing in and passed me his bike, and I was off on a mission to regain lost places! I had a lap and a half left, regained 2 spots while trying not to startle the Cub Juniors as I came barreling by, and finished in 12th. Not at all what I was hoping for, but it was a relatively large field and an acceptable result for all the (unnecessary) time I spent riding a flat. I didn't find out about the two pit entrances until after the race, and I've been kicking myself over it ever since, but at least I learned a valuable lesson about how pits work, and know in the future to pay better attention to them. I planned on racing the 1/2/3 race later in the day but getting knocked off my bike earlier in the week by a truck who was apparently unaware of turn signals led to a sore hip, and I called it quits for the day.

I'm really excited about Gloucester next weekend, the pre-reg for the women's 3/4 field for Saturday is nearly double what it was last year (already at 80 women!), and I'm aiming (hoping) for a top ten result. Also, if you like cupcakes, you should probably come and find me at the B2C2 camp at some point this weekend.

GMCX Day 2 of 1

Historically, I've had bad luck with Green Mountain CX. I've registered the last two years and then, for one reason or another, was shut out of the weekend entirely. After not racing since late August, I've been getting antsy and needed to get my CX going.



Intending to do both races, I realized I had tickets for Pavement Saturday and figured I was, again, going to miss this race, but Colin managed to convince me coming for just Sunday was a good idea. And away I went.

The Race

I missed out on the horrible climbing race the day prior, much to my chagrin. My legs were sort of fresh, I guess, though 3.5 hours of driving was obviously not the ideal set-up. Pre-riding the course I found I could get decent grip with my current "race tires" (last years Mud2's).

Staged second to dead last, I moved up a bit in the field, and in the first 180 down and up passed some people who got caught in the Keough salmoning bit. But then a French Canadian rider wiped out in a turn and took my front wheel. Coming down the twisty section, I was now close to dead last again.

I gained time on the slower climb shortly afterward, which allowed me to connect with a group that had people I wanted to beat. My first go up the log step up was a run, which helped me gain some time in traffic. At some point I passed Cary, and then he passed me, and then he crashed. And then I passed him again. I also passed Colin at some point, too. With at least two milestones accomplished I continued on. I attacked the group I was riding with over the starting climb, but once at the front did not really get away. Some of those people passed me again. Into the pit for water (oh, by the way, it was about 70 degrees), Colin totally left the door open for me, which ruled, though the group had strung out and by the last two laps I was pretty much alone. Sad face. I kept looking back for Tim Johnson, but he never arrived.

The Result

23rd finishing lead lap. This is a satisfactory result, especially since I feel like I'm still building form. However, I did not get a lot of video time on Colin's bar cam, which is really the only measurable result that matters at a race in New England.

Quad Cross. All day.

After a race, it is important to stretch.

I got to Quad Cross early this year because it seems we have racers IN EVERY SINGLE FIELD except the "crabby old man" group (dont worry, Ill be there soon...). We arrived a bit before 9, in time to give Tammy the shoes she needed to race in and also in time to give the new course a ride-about.

The quad folks seem to improve this race a little bit every year: this time there were more turns, more exceedingly awkward turns, and a gen-u-wine sand pit. Three power sections limited the damage from watts factories, and a choose your own adventure run-up/ ride-up after the barricades made you pick your gears wisely before dismounting.

Getting to the race early also gave me a chance to dust off my somewhat rusty heckling skills. I "raced" teammates and unsuspecting racers alike up the hill, hollered at a few particularly good-looking cat 3s (looking at you here, bramhall), and marveled at how many national champion jerseys were on display at a little race in Bedford.

My race went off somewhat after 3, and because of an ill-timed bathroom break, I was relegated to a back row start. I will say, however, that the quantity and power of the toilets provided for our use were both satisfactory and a welcome change from the norm. Bike racers appreciate the little things. Like powerful flushing.

Best start position ever.

Anyway, Diane came out to give us our starting instructions, which were - more or less - "You are all elite racers. You should know what to do by now". We did, until we got the go whistle. Then things went from "back row start" bad to "I am now completely stopped" bad. You see, RMM somehow got out of his pedal and completely sideways. I was about to offer him some encouragement but then heard someone yell "I AM TOTALLY GOING TO BLOG ABOUT THIS". My start now complicated by bad position AND paroxysms of laughter, I went about the business of scoring a decent reverse holeshot. It was hectic in those first few turns - I got put into the tape by a 545 velo rider with dreams of midpack glory, chopped the ever loving hell out of (I think) Pete Sullivans wheel (sorry!), was mercilessly chopped in return up the first climb after the barricades by a clever combination of Cort Cramer and a tree root and realized that this was a totally different race than I was used to.

You see, in the 3s, you make a mistake - botch a turn, spin out up a climb, play around with the course tape - and you can count on everyone around you to make a similar mistake and not lose too much time. In (at least the front part of) the elite race, you make one bobble and 5 guys that are just as good as you fly by. So to make up the 30-odd spots I gave up in the first 15 seconds of this race, I had to have a flawless 11 laps. No problem.

Here we go.

I actually felt pretty good. I was hurting, obviously, but steadily moving up. By the 3rd or 4th lap I caught Jon Bernhard. The barnyard is known to me, and has traditionally been able to destroy me in races. When I caught him, we had a moment. But I think that moment was different for each of us.

I think mine went like this:
"Wow, I caught Jon! I must be doing well!"

His went something more like this:
"Oh Jesus, I must be riding on two flat tires."

I think I may have subconsciously backed off the gas a tiny bit, satisfied on some level that I caught a fast guy. At the same time, he probably pushed a little bit harder. The net effect of our little game was to keep us at a speed that was slower than the one I was pushing when I caught him, but faster than he was going before my haggard ass found his wheel. Translation: I stopped moving up, and settled in for 8 laps of pass-on-the-grass with Jon Barnyard.

I love this game.

This went well, I suppose. We werent gaining ground, but we didnt seem to be losing any either. On the last lap, right before the final paved stretch, Kerin Wolfson caught us and accelerated. Jon jumped on, they got a gap, and that was it. I couldnt shut it down; I rolled across the line in 13th place. Not too shabby, considering the beginning of my race.

Evan Huff has gone to plaid.

The team did really well:

Ian and Matt rode well together (and I think Ian is currently leading the Hebrew Cup.

Ian is partying like it was 5771.

Here is Matt and someones bum.

Lauren responds to heckles by passing other racers.

Remounting on the sand? Bold move, Ryan...

Harrison rode himself into some sunglasses and a jug of beer

After the race we hung out with the Newbury comics/ Quad guys and broke down the course. Good work, everyone!