It Had To Happen

DNF, the three letters that no-racer wants to see or utter. Utah Cyclocross race # 8, and my first race in Heber, ended a little quicker than I anticipated. Problems from the very start. First, in trying to get my rear tire inflated I found that I had put in a tube with a very short valve stem, after hunting around for a pump that would work I eventually borrowed a valve extender from perennial 'crosser and beardsmith Bob Walker, who was nice enough to let me borrow the valve extender 3 more times and offered use of any of his tools. Nice guy! I finally got the tire inflated and set out to pre-ride the course. It's both a fun course and irritating course. There are some fun, fast sections with opportunities for those with great cornering skills, and some slooowww grass sections. Although the run-up was kind of steep I thought it was kind of fun, especially the fast 180 degree downhill at the top.

After a single warm-up lap my rear tire was totally flat. Head for the car, get the spare tire, also with sealant, installed and pumped up. One more warm-up lap and found the rear tire was low, found the goathead, re-inflated the tire and headed to the start line. I was in the back of the pack, I hate starting at the back. I checked the pressure on my rear tire to find it quite low again, but ride-able. I knew with the number of thorns out there that I wasn't going to hold enough pressure to last the entire race, so I decided to just go as fast as I could for as long as I could and not hold anything back. The race started and I took off flying past about half the group, made it through the slight bottleneck at the first turn and made up some more time. I was having a lot of fun, all the while I could feel my tire losing more air and getting more squirmy in the corners. I started to baby it a bit, not wanting to pull the tire off the rim.

I got through one lap and had to pull off, but it was a fun lap. Went back to the car and grabbed my cowbell. I found a good spot on the run-up where I could both encourage and heckle my teammates. Things were looking good, Pat was in the lead with Clay in 3rd or 4th, and both of them looking strong. Josh, Brad and Kerry came around looking pretty fresh. I heckled the couple of people that pushed their bike around the 2nd barrier on run-up. After a couple of laps I saw Clay come through wondered if I had missed Pat. Moments later I saw Pat heading for the pits, he had a flat rear tire. I watched from the top of the hill as he furiously pumped up his tire, the he kept pumping, and pumping. He couldn't ever get his tire to seal up so he was out. On the 2nd to last lap, Clay came around in 2nd and took 1st at the top of the run-up. He was looking pretty determined. I guess the 1st place and 3rd place both had mechanicals so he took advantage and put it to them. He came through the finish line with a 5 or 10 second gap on 2nd place. AWESOME! Team Clammy Chamois has a state camp.

I'm not sure where the rest of the team ended up, since I didn't finish I didn't bother looking at the results. Everyone had fun and Josh cooked up some killer brats to enjoy. Kerry brought out the generator and hot chocolate maker to keep us warm as the wind kicked up and it got cold. Though there wasn't any mud, and I only raced one lap, it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

Thoughts of Cyclocross Make Me Happy...and tired

This just in...I'm tired. I haven't been in bed before 11 pm once in the last two weeks. Additionally I haven't touched my bike since I parked it in the basement after the last 'cross race two weeks ago. I'm looking forward to the race on Saturday, but I know I'm going to hate myself somewhere around lap 3, when my legs decide they're done and the pain in my back decides it's time to crank it up to 11. I'm determined to hit the sack early, after I enjoy The Office tonight. Hopefully a decent night's sleep tonight and tomorrow will help the situation.

The weather is supposed to be cold, with some possible snow. We'll see. I'd love some mud, which the 'cross races have been fairly devoid of so far this year. Even still, thinking about racing makes me tired. Team Clammy Chamois needs to make it's presence known with some decent results from the middle and bottom of the team so I'm going to pull out all the stops and go for a top 30 placing.

Utah Cyclocross Race #7 and Introducing Team Clammy Chamois

I was reminded by the blog of my new team captain Josh, that I hadn't yet mentioned that I've joined team Clammy Chamois. One may wonder why someone would join a team named "Clammy Chamois." I think it's the perfect name for a cyclocross team. 'Cross is sort of a non-conformist, rebel sport. Clearly, with a name like Clammy Chamois we're embracing the non-conformist side of the sport and it makes people, like the triathletes at SBR, grimace and say "ewww" when they hear the name. We are a non-shop or sponsor affiliated team. We just want to race, grill up some brats and shoot the breeze. Currently we're 13th of 25 teams in the Utah Cyclocross Series, thanks mostly to Clay and Pat, but Josh, Kerry, Brad and myself do a decent enough job of adding in some finisher points to make a strong finish. We've got one other team member, Riley, whom I have not yet met. So far things are great. It means we all have a group to hang out with after the race and tell stories about the various racers that either plagued us or pushed us to ride just a little bit faster. We're all over the board with results. Clay and Pat continually finish in the top 10, usually the top 5 or 6. Josh and myself are around mid pack or so. Kerry pulls up the rear, though I'm pretty sure that's because he's masochistic and rides a singlespeed. I don't think I could even finish the race on a singlespeed. The team aspect has made racing cyclocross that much funner. I even found out that Josh, like myself, is a fan of Irish and Scottish punk; Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphy's, Real McKenzies, etc.

Last year 4 of my 6 races were at Wheeler Farm, with the other 2 in Draper. Race #6, my 4th race of the year was at the Weber fairgrounds, that makes 3 of 4 races in the same place. There are aspects of Weber that make it fun. There aren't any tough hills and you can really rail through the corners with tons of traction. The downer is that it's totally non-technical and I just don't have the fitness to keep up with a lot of guys on all of the flat sections. It was a fairly un-eventful race. I learned that I could hop the single log barrier instead of dismounting. To clarify, I can hop the log the first couple of laps, the last 2 or 3 I have just enough energy to get my front wheel over and un-weigh the rear wheel enough to get it to roll over the log. Either way it saves me from that lung searing run between the logs.

I was doing ok, keeping within a couple spots of Josh for most of the race when I dropped my chain shifting to the big ring on a section of sidewalk. I lost about 4 spots and never could get back up to where I was. I think I managed to make up 2 of those spots but just didn't have enough left in the tank to pull out much in the end. No one was around me at the finish so no spectacular sprint this week, though I did feel pretty close to puking after I came to a stop.

Next race, after a week off is at the Heber Fairgrounds, my first time racing there. We'll see how it goes.

Mud and guts on 3

Utah Cyclocross Race #5

Check out my write up of Halloween-cross Race # 5 on the the Cyclocross Magazine Forum http://cowbell.cxmagazine.com/forum/topics/race-report-contest-3