HPCX 2012

With Hurricane Sandy making its way slowly directly towards us, I was uncertain about the conditions that I was driving towards in New Jersey.  Because it was pouring this morning here in Bethlehem, I assumed it could only be worse closer to the Atlantic.  I grabbed my mud tires (Captain CX) and only as an afterthought threw my Tracer tubulars in the back of the car.  I'm glad I did, because surprisingly it was dry in NJ, and the course was fast, even dusty.  Nothing like last year at all!  It was the muddiest race I've ever done.

The course was fun, although I was rimming out really hard on the root sections, those continue to be my nemesis.  A couple of times I hit so hard I was sure that I'd flat, or crack the rim.  That's really something to work on.  For a while I followed Dag, until he accelerated away too fast for me to follow.  After the first lap, I never saw the leaders, and came in 8th / 63, same as last year, and just one spot ahead of the race predictor.  Eric broke a cable, or I'm sure he would have been up there as well.

Then a short break before the UCI Elite race.  My only plan was to get some good training in, and try to not get lapped for as long as possible.   Race predictor had me at 39/44, but that wasn't happening.  After the first lap I could feel that I was really still struggling, and so just tried to ride smoothly.  Coming up on 1 to go, the three leaders came through, so I pulled over and let them by.  They were flying.  I don't mind getting lapped by a guy from Rabobank....

The tires worked out really well, I kept finding that the Tracers had more traction then I expected from them, and was able to corner faster as the day went on, even though it was getting wetter.  I think I had 23-24psi in the front, and 25.5 in the back.  That seemed just about right.

Now to prepare for the rain.