roadcx.net

Daytripped Columbia CX#3 today with Andrea, our dog Turbo (our JRT was left at home), our CX bikes, a Trek Madone for Jeremy (he got one of the team bikes-delivered to a shop in Memphis), and Andrea’s Blue frame from a few seasons ago (she sold it)….

Weather was much better than two weeks ago, much warmer.  Able to wear only a base layer and a skinsuit with arm/knee warmers.  Andrea’s race (2nd race of the day), was still in the dry for most part.  As usual she won the W1/2/3 and beat a good chunk of the men in the combined CX3 – Masters 35/45+ – Womens field.

Just after her race, during the short 10-15 break between the races, it started to rain… cold, cold rain.  I ended up re-donning the knee warmers (had took them off getting ready for the race) and keeping the vest on.  We had a small race in CX1/2, just Jeremy C. and Dustin.  Adding to that were two singlespeeders that started just behind and would race for less time.

Maybe it was the cold, the rain, or whatever, but I wasn’t ready to go when the word go was spoken.  I was gapped off the line still fumbling with my Garmin (which I didn’t stop and reset for the race) and wondering how I was going to get my vest off.

I ended up riding the first lap with the vest on and tried to pull back Jeremy and Dustin, but was unable to close the distance and they started to walk away from me on the course.  I manage to pull off the vest (turned out to be more ackward than I thought, probably the rain soaking it.)

The 2nd time up the run up, I felt like I might be doing something and maybe pulling them back…  that thought didn’t last long as the gaps were clearly increasing, meaning that I was riding my own race for 3rd.  I focused on riding the laps as good as I could especially trying to improve my speed through the increasingly slippery turns.  In the end, Jeremy took the win, followed by Dustin 30-40 seconds back (I think), and by me 2 minutes behind him.

Not a great race for me..  Bad start notwithstanding (vest, etc), those guys just rode away from me.  It would have been interesting to see how long I could hang, but it didn’t work out that way.

Next weekend, I am headed back to No. Georgia with Andrea for the rescheduled Southern X.  Because the date was changed, I am now able to make it and so I bought a registration from a rider that couldn’t make the new dates.  My fitness is much like it was last year, so I have very little expectations other than it promises to be a good training day in the saddle.

On the way back to Memphis, we plan to hit the finale of the Cross the Way series.  No TBAR points on offer, but there is a few bucks and it should be a good race in any case.   This will be last race of my 2009-2010 cyclocross campaign.  I have a work trip planned leaving the weekend of the Tennessee State Championships, so I won’t be able to race it (it is the extreme far eastern end of Tennessee as well).

After that, the road training begins in earnest with Marx & Bensdorf team camp and other road training rides leading up to Rouge Roubaix in early March.

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Here are some random photos of the CX4 and some of the CX3/M35+/W123 race.