I believe that this will go down as one of my favorite cross racing weekends. A double header, less then 20 minutes from my house, in familiar "home" territory, with perfect fall cross weather, and good racing. The atmosphere was fun and friendly, with free beer and sausages.
After my bike carnage on day 1, I had many offers for replacement wheels and complete bikes for day 2. Having a catastrophic failure directly in front of the spectators probably helps, even Ryan was trying to offer me a bike during the race as he rode by to take the lead.
Thanks to Cutter's bike shop, after a quick repair Saturday night and a quick spin around the yard, I was ready and extra motivated for Sunday morning. The bonus hour of rest thanks to daylight savings was good for catching some extra sleep, but I think the best part was the weather felt significantly warmer.
After checking out the course and seeing some of the tires of the 'C' racers, I was glad to be on the Captain CX tires which have a more aggressive tread and shed mud well. The mud was even slicker then before, and the dense consistency was like a structural building material filling in the tread of many tires, turning them into slicks.
Now, with the course in reverse, we'd have a short straight section, before a 90 degree left turn, and then the off camber switch backs around the back of the baseball diamond. This we all expected to be messy in the start, and no one wanted unnecessary crashes.
Off the line I was third going around the first corner, but when we hit that mud section there was a large tangle of wheels, pedals, and legs. I saw someone's pedals going into my spokes, so just took my time to make sure I was completely clear before picking up the bike and running the rest. Thankfully, made it through cleanly, however I had lost a lot of places and was now sitting pretty far back. I moved up as I could, and after a lap I was back in the third spot. Ryan was in front of me, and Julian from Philadelphia Cyclocross School was riding away from the rest of us. Ryan had flatted, and was just trying to make it to the pits, unfortunately his spare bike was a single speed which was quite a disadvantage on the long straight sections of this course.
I then spent the next few laps trying to catch Julian, but it seemed like he was still getting farther ahead. There was a big collection of spectators by the barriers, along with the sausage grill and Bill on the microphone who was giving me time checks on each lap. For a while, he dangled at about 20 seconds, which looks pretty far off. For much of the course he was out of sight. Gale was chasing behind me in third, and I could see him working hard. Finally the time checks started coming down, 17 seconds, then 6, the spectators seemed to be getting into it, and it all helped as I was digging for extra motivation.
With two to go, he was in sight, and I changed from thinking that there was no way I could catch him, to suddenly thinking it might be possible. Basically with one to go, I caught him near the start finish line. I think that we both slowed up a bit at this point, as we each tried to decide what to do next. We traded the lead a few times in the last lap, I tried an acceleration up the hill to the switchbacks on the back side where it was dry and fast, but he followed me easily. But that did put me in front through the barriers which was probably the better place to be. At the top of the hill before the finishing straight there was a set of muddy switch backs that were really slick. I concentrated on not sliding out at all, which basically required creeping along at barely a crawl. Neither of us could get much traction, so nothing changed, and I hit the slightly downhill straight first. I tried to accelerate quickly, as I wanted to stay in front, but be ready to respond to his sprint. I could look down and watch his shadow, and when it looked like he was up out of the saddle and really starting to go, I clicked down and sprinted as hard as I could. My smallest cog was caked with mud as I hadn't used it before in the race, so the chain started jumping around, and he was starting to pull up alongside me, but the line came up quickly and I had just managed to hold him off. Definitely the tightest finish I've ever had in a cross race, and the most exciting.
I was completely knackered, sprinting after 45 minutes of hard cross racing left me with absolutely nothing. Julian was going really fast, we finished together with a full 2 minutes on the next finisher. Such a tight battle made for excellent racing, one in which every little dab or bobble could make the difference, coming down to less then a bike length.
I'm pretty sure we did one more lap then we did on Saturday, and the Captain CX tires worked really well. I easily picked up a couple of extra pounds worth of mud around the bottom bracket and stuck to the frame tubes of the bike. You could have built a solid house from that stuff, but the tires stayed mostly clear.
On day 1, I was trying to preserve my lead, and on day 2 I was trying to catch the leader. Both were very different experiences. I could definitely feel the pressure on day 1, as Ryan kept eating into my lead. On day 2, I could dig much deeper for motivation to chase. Neither spot is easy to be in, but when you're at your limit, a little extra motivation can make all the difference.
Definitely one of most fun cross weekends yet, I love the MAC races and will certainly do more, but it was a great opportunity to race in front of so many familiar faces close to home and soak in the fun vibes.
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