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First race in the new kit (Marx & Bensdorf) and last race of my Fall campaign, it was good to do both at a race in Memphis. Andrea and I headed down to the river to race the 23rd annual Outdoors Inc mid-south cyclcocross championships. This year the race is not the Tennessee state championship (which it has been for most of the last decade). With increased racing statewide, the state championships has moved around, this year to a late season race in Johnson City. I guess that is payback for last year and other years where it was held in Memphis.

Since my lightweight tubular wheelset is out of service (front tubie rolled off, rear one needs a little spoke wrenching after the crash last weekend), I decided to put some Michelin Jet tires on my Shimano DuraAce carbon / aluminum wheelset. The course is pretty much grass or hardpack, so these were perfect… I ran them down at 30 psig front, 35 psig rear, so I was taking a risk with that low of a pressure with tubed clincher tires, but it was the right setup.

Andrea raced her teammate Casey in the Womens race which started behind the CX4 / Beginner Masters “B”-race. She won and rode a good race (I let her race my above mentioned DuraAce/Jet combos since her tubeless burped out some air on our preview lap.)

The A-race was right after it. This race was most of the rest: CX1/2, CX3, and Masters 35/45+. Lined up 2nd row, right behind Russ (M&B) and right next to Will (also M&B). Got a reasonable start, staying close to the leaders maybe in 6th – 7th spot. I started to move up when I could and after a while (maybe 2 laps), 2 leaders had a decent gap on Russ and Bert (35+ racer) and they had a gap on me.

I started to make some separation to those behind when I ran under the course rope going down a hill and had to push hard to regain the gap. By mid-race, I ended up catching up to Russ and we worked together going down the long straightaway.

The laps pretty much went the same way, he would get up the steep ride-up to the sidewalk better than I, I would catch back by the timber stairs. He would ride the timber stairs…I would run them… chase.

Repeat, repeat. On the last lap, I was little slower coming back to him and had to navigate around a lap rider at the top of the course. Over the log barriers to the finishing stretch, he had a few second gap… I big-ringed it (for the first time all race) and started to come back. Russ spotted that move before it was too late, so we finished 3rd and 4th (me).

Andrea took all these photos, I edited them and put them up in a gallery.