There are always wrecks, crashes, scuffs, dings, wipe-outs, blunders, and dropped-chains at 'cross races, but wow, it sure seemed like WhirlyBird had more then its fair share last weekend.
The big change was a new venue, and I really liked the course. Fast, with "flow", some terrain variations, and it was lots of fun. Definitely an improvement from the previous few years.
Greg missed his call up, but still managed a top 25 finish, and Jeff was close behind. Right from the start, there was a significant crash in the prologue of the Masters 35+ race, taking down a few riders in the high speed turn before the pavement.
My 2/3/4 race started off well. I was second row on the starting grid, and the guy in front of me missed his clip-in, but I managed to scoot around him into the void in front and into fourth wheel. All was smooth until I hit the first set of barriers on the first lap, either I clipped my wheel on the first barrier, or just plain tripped over it, but I piled head first into the second barrier. I lost some time and momentum there.
Then, on the run-up after the second set of barriers I dropped my chain, and had a hard time getting it back on the chainrings (3 min). You can see the camera man go by in this video (#314 in yellow):
Then, coming up the paved incline to the stadium, I heard a terrific crash and looked back just in time to see someone that had piled into the chain link fence flying head first over his bars. Ouch, that one probably hurt.
I managed to make up a few spots and caught up to a group of 6-7 who were riding together. My chance to pass came when someone in front of the group took the downhill too fast and clipped the pipe marking the cross walk. (Same thing that happens to the camera man above. ) That was a tricky turn.
I ended up running my Tracer tubular in back (thankfully the Hutchinson Fast'Air sealed it up), and my Captain CX tubeless in front. It actually felt like a fast combination, with great cornering.
Finished 8th, so was four spots down on the cross-results.com prediction, but I had a second chance in the Elite race.
In the starting grid, someone looked around and counted, turns out that there were only 26 starters, a small field, and because they were paying 25 deep, one person here wasn't going home with a check. Ok, there is my goal....
Right off the grid, Mike F pops a spoke, and that takes him out, now there are only 25 in the running. The 60 minutes of racing were far less eventful then the 2/3/4 race, it was also a smoother effort then then spurts I was putting in trying to move up and pass people.
For a while I was behind a guy who was running too low pressure in his tubulars, at each turn his rear was rolling over and washing out with a bRaapP, it looked hard to control. At one point I got by Willem who I expected to be faster then myself, we've been fairly closely matched in previous races. For a while, I was focused on staying ahead of him, until I decided that it was better to chase something ahead, then run from something behind me. I was trading spots with a Skylands/Sussex Bike rider for a while, until I cracked and he got a pretty good lead. I could just barely see Patrick Bradley a couple of times, but we were very spread out. In the last lap, I was torn between just riding my spot, I was safe where I was, or trying to catch the Skylands/Sussex bike guy who was a few seconds ahead. With a few extra efforts, I got really close on the final lap, but couldn't quite catch him before the finish.
Ended up 17th, just beating the race predictor by one spot, no doubt thanks to Mike's broken spoke.
Next up, our very own Town Hall Cross.
The big change was a new venue, and I really liked the course. Fast, with "flow", some terrain variations, and it was lots of fun. Definitely an improvement from the previous few years.
Greg missed his call up, but still managed a top 25 finish, and Jeff was close behind. Right from the start, there was a significant crash in the prologue of the Masters 35+ race, taking down a few riders in the high speed turn before the pavement.
My 2/3/4 race started off well. I was second row on the starting grid, and the guy in front of me missed his clip-in, but I managed to scoot around him into the void in front and into fourth wheel. All was smooth until I hit the first set of barriers on the first lap, either I clipped my wheel on the first barrier, or just plain tripped over it, but I piled head first into the second barrier. I lost some time and momentum there.
Then, on the run-up after the second set of barriers I dropped my chain, and had a hard time getting it back on the chainrings (3 min). You can see the camera man go by in this video (#314 in yellow):
Then, coming up the paved incline to the stadium, I heard a terrific crash and looked back just in time to see someone that had piled into the chain link fence flying head first over his bars. Ouch, that one probably hurt.
I managed to make up a few spots and caught up to a group of 6-7 who were riding together. My chance to pass came when someone in front of the group took the downhill too fast and clipped the pipe marking the cross walk. (Same thing that happens to the camera man above. ) That was a tricky turn.
I ended up running my Tracer tubular in back (thankfully the Hutchinson Fast'Air sealed it up), and my Captain CX tubeless in front. It actually felt like a fast combination, with great cornering.
Finished 8th, so was four spots down on the cross-results.com prediction, but I had a second chance in the Elite race.
In the starting grid, someone looked around and counted, turns out that there were only 26 starters, a small field, and because they were paying 25 deep, one person here wasn't going home with a check. Ok, there is my goal....
Right off the grid, Mike F pops a spoke, and that takes him out, now there are only 25 in the running. The 60 minutes of racing were far less eventful then the 2/3/4 race, it was also a smoother effort then then spurts I was putting in trying to move up and pass people.
For a while I was behind a guy who was running too low pressure in his tubulars, at each turn his rear was rolling over and washing out with a bRaapP, it looked hard to control. At one point I got by Willem who I expected to be faster then myself, we've been fairly closely matched in previous races. For a while, I was focused on staying ahead of him, until I decided that it was better to chase something ahead, then run from something behind me. I was trading spots with a Skylands/Sussex Bike rider for a while, until I cracked and he got a pretty good lead. I could just barely see Patrick Bradley a couple of times, but we were very spread out. In the last lap, I was torn between just riding my spot, I was safe where I was, or trying to catch the Skylands/Sussex bike guy who was a few seconds ahead. With a few extra efforts, I got really close on the final lap, but couldn't quite catch him before the finish.
Ended up 17th, just beating the race predictor by one spot, no doubt thanks to Mike's broken spoke.
Next up, our very own Town Hall Cross.
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