Race Report(s): Cyclocross National Championships

Grab the coffee, turn off the phone, and snuggle into the couch, this baby is a verbose one!

First, the who, what, when and where.  I arrived in Portland, OR on Thursday night, plane predictably late, hopped into a rented Ford Escape (pronounced ay-'sca'-pay), threw the ginormous but surprisingly light bike box into the back, and headed over the snowy roads around Mt. Hood... destination: Bend, OR and the USAC National Cyclocross Championships.  I had two races, one the Masters 30-34 on Friday and the Pro/Elite(!) Women on Sunday.  Also, thanks to Peter, I had a fabulous homestay for the weekend (a cyclist and all around nice guy).

Off to the races....

If there is one thing you can count on for a cyclocross race in Oregon, it seems to be mud.  Going in to Nats, I was a little concerned that I hadn’t ridden in the slop yet this year.  And I was hoping that my past year’s experience with the unpredictable, quad-busting brown stuff would still be with me and serve me well.

The lay of the land:  I only raced in good old MO this year; I didn’t race the Women’s Masters 30-34+ race last year; and I skipped out on the seeding time trial on Thursday morning.  All adding up to the reality that I was going to be starting in the back of the pack, with lots of opportunities to pass and crash!  The course was really tight.  Lots of hairpins, four spots that required jumping off the bike and running, and, of course, the mud.  How muddy are we talking?  Bend was slammed by a snowstorm the week before the race.  Then unseasonably warm weather melted almost all of it.  Followed by torrential downpours, high winds, and broken by schizophrenic sunshine and you have the makings of a mudfest.

Race Day #1.  Surprise, surprise, I got a late start out the door, misplaced my numbers at race registration, and realized that I didn’t pack my warm-up pants.  Late is not too late.  The numbers were easily retrieved.  And who needs warm-up pants when the fine folks at Lemond Fitness generously set-up wind trainers on the outdoor theater stage for anybody to use for a pre-race spin?  I was bound and determined to show up at the start with my twisted Lynskey clean.

I was lined-up at the start in the last row, maybe five rows back?  Hard to tell from my vantage point… practically needed binoculars to see the first row!  No big shocker there.  Nope, the big shocker came 15 ft. off the start-line (barely enough time to take four pedal strokes).  A woman went down hard, right in the middle of the group from maybe the third row and took out most of the field behind her.  I applied the brakes so hard, my front wheel lifted off the ground.  I slid/jumped off the back of the saddle as the woman next to me landed side-ways bodily on my bike.  I leaned over, lifted my bike and her up, extricated her leg and her bike from frame, and hopped on the bike to see if it worked.  It didn’t, the front wheel had come out of the drops and I had to reseat it before finally “starting my race”!  Check out the video (I’m the Jolly Green Giant in the black Maplewood Bicycle kit #391 and the tall socks trying smile off my misfortune).

I rounded the first turn, finally hitting that mud I might have mentioned earlier.  I immediately starting playing the “pass” part of this game in the tricky lines.  Lucky for me I got right on a woman’s wheel right before she went ass over shoulder.  I had no way of maneuvering around her… all I could do was take all my weight off the handlebars as my front wheel rolled over her face.  I almost threw-up right then!  Except that I miraculously stayed clipped-in and rubber-side down.  I churned through a virtual swimming pool on the course (a 40 ft. mud puddle so deep, my shoes disappeared in it) and continued on my muddy way.

On my muddy way...

The course followed like this – rutted and tricky off-camber turns, a downhill bump, a short-run up that could best be described as a 4ft mud cliff with a semblance of footholds, an uphill bump, a rest-your belly-button-on-your saddle dipper, and that was just the first half. 

We wound around onto the beer garden/vendor side where the course was temporarily marked by a line of beer barrels alongside the Deschuetes Brewery and followed by a set of barriers that came right after a sharp little blind downhill.  These were almost immediately followed by a quad-busting, chain-breaker uphill.  I almost ate it in the barriers on the first lap, and I never got up that hill with out sliding my butt off the back of the saddle and running up it (always getting stuck behind somebody).  What goes up, must come down, and without clipping-in, I barreled down a somewhat treacherous downhill followed and onto a  pavement lip, holding my breath on each go around.  And, we’re not done yet! 

Next, we swung around back on to the “grass”, navigating a dip-turned-creek before hauling up an over-pass that spectators could walk under to get their beer (and coffee, burritos, and frites! Oh my).  This is where the course got even trickier and more funner (and slightly rerouted for later races in the week-end to make it less treacherous…this section will figure in a later race).   It snaked along the expo side and then there were STAIRS… at least 15 of them.  I, of course, took them two-at-a-time for three of the four laps!  And then finally, and thankfully, the lap ended, and it was off to do it again.  The course was so long that in the 40-minutes of our race, we only got to do 4 laps.  That’s good for the ladies at the back; they get their money’s worth!

Coming down from the overpass.

So, that was the race pretty much.  After my two snafoos, I was effectively last for all intense purposes.  I gruelingly worked my way back up to 14^th (5^th Cat2) before the end!

Guess what the crashing did to my baby (the newest addition to my bike fleet)… I spent most of the race in two-three gears as I kept slipping in and out of them each time I tried to shift too far one way of the other.  I figured the hanger was bent (need to get some spares).  What I didn’t figure was buying a whole new rear derailleur.  Upon later inspection (by my excellent friend-of-a-friend home-stay – and hopefully my new friend, Eric, if he can still stand me still- who incidentally put me up, fed me, cleaned my bike twice(!), and entertained me above and beyond anything I would have ever expected) the rear derailleur was toast!  Yes, the hangar actually was impossibly bent, but the B-tensioner screw on the derailleur was ripped off, the arm was bent in, and the barrel adjuster was destroyed.  Practically the only thing it’s good for now is spare sprockets.  How did I ride this bike for the whole race?  Oh, not to mention that the rear wheel was a little out of true (very sorry Stewart).

Thankfully, the guys at Hutch’s Bike Shop in Bend helped me out with the new part and at least my bike was race ready for Sunday.  I discovered all the new scrapes and bruises in the shower, not to mention the late-onset soreness that night.

Racing with the big girls.

I chilled and worked out the muscle kinks with a five-mile trail run, and just enjoyed the unseasonably warm and spectacular weather that arrived in Bend on Saturday afternoon.

The sun was out early on Sunday and I went to watch my friend Blair Bronson rip it up in the Div. 1 Collegiate Men’s Championships (I think it was only his third ‘cross race ever).  It’s funny watching a cross race fully clothed.  Seeing all the mud and pain face out on the course, I had little desire to get out onto the course myself.  But later, as soon as I put on my shorts and jersey (need to get me a skinsuit for next year) and pulled up my tall socks, it was game on.  I warmed up on the stage again (that was so key!) and went to await my call-up.

And, I had to wait a long time.  In a field of over a hundred women, I think my start position was 95^th.  So, much for “randomly” getting screwed.  With women 8-wide on the line, you can do the math and figure that I was in the 9^th or 10^th row.

I am indicated by the yellow arrow... I might stick out in a crowd.  Just a little bit.

This time, it was clean..which is to say that there were no crashes that I was involved in.  And thanks to Bob’s Red Mill, the swimming pool on the course had been reportedly soaked up by a timely application of pounds of steel cut oats.  However, the rest of that section looked like a herd of cows had gone through it, and I found it best to dismount and run this entire thing.  My strategy for the whole first lap: get off and run it!  I did that in three spots, passing an amazing number of women in the process.  I even ran about 50-60 yds leading up to the stairs.  The advantage of running while carrying your bike in that muck?  A free hand to guide the women on their bikes out of your way!

I kept working my way up the whole race.  It was painful and fun.  I traded places with a couple of women for four out the five laps, eventually working my way up into 37^th!  It wasn’t the best display of bike-handling skill and acumen, but it was a major improvement on my result from last year!  And I managed to stay ahead of the Comptonator, which meant I got to race all the laps (she again lapped half the field).  I did have one incident… I was aiming to cut somebody off (my bad!) and she managed to cut me right back on a sharp turn.  In order to stay upright, I swung my right knee out and caught a beer barrel square, tearing a flap of skin off the point of my knee… it bled pretty impressively, and mixed with the mud, I looked really tough.  Not so tough now though, going to have to ice when I get home.   Going to have to ice a lot of things when I get home, actually.

Avoiding the barrels on this lap, but the bloody deed has been done!

MUCHOS GRACIAS to Eric for letting me invade his life for the weekend.  Stewart and Maplewood Bicycle for the opportunity to race out there on probably the nicest (and coolest) bike I have ever owned (I’ll make sure to “own” it soon.  And don’t let my other bikes hear about that; they are a jealous bunch, especially Tigger).  Travis for the used (new) groupo, the bike box, and the heckling from afar.  Stacie for taking me to and from the airport.  My Corvegas (you guys rock!), PacNW/West, and Missouri (that was a cool surprise) peeps for cowbell and pics.  Friends who were sending me telepathic high-fives and goo-oo-ood vibrations.  All the Bubba ladies and Mens Bs who provided fun racing opportunities this year.

Time to let my bruises heal.  Cyclocross done!