New Bike

I've said before that riding a cyclocross bike makes you feel like a kid again. It's a fast, fun, go anywhere bike. Well, I totally feel like an overly excited kid right now because I just got my new Stevens carbon Cyclocross frame/fork. This bike is easily the most comfortable, best riding bike I've ever ridden. It's light, stiff in all the right places, and the geometry and size fits me perfectly. The frameset has a world championship and at least one national championship under it's belt. Right now my precious is sitting in a cardboard box in my office. It seems sad to have such a work of art shoved in a box. I was able to get some new SRAM components bought to get this bike from it's current cardboard state to cruising down the road. I was going to go with a full SRAM Force build, but after doing some checking I found there was only a 17 gram difference in weight between Force and Rival shifters. So, with the performance being the same and the only real difference between the two being a magnesium shift paddle on Force and aluminum on Rival, I opted for Rival and saved a few bucks. A friend just replaced the Force derailleurs on his bike with RED so he's selling me those parts cheap. I hope to get around to building the bike in about a week, when the parts get delivered. I'll get some pics up when I get a chance.

End Season Race - Snow 'Cross

I half-heartedly registered for the end of season, counts for nothing, cyclocross race. When Friday, the day before the race rolled around I figured I ought to make sure my bike was still functioning; I hadn't touched it or any other bike in about a month. I found the rear tire completely flat. I pumped it up only to see it immediatly go flat. I didn't want to fix it so I pumped it up again and spun the wheel a bit hoping the sealant in the tube would do the job. I lucked out, the tire stopped going flat, and I just topped it off with a little more air.

This year, just as last year, the race was held at Wheeler Farm. Last year the race course was covered in 6 inches of new slushy snow. It was REALLY hard and I hoped this year, though we had 4 inches of snow, the going would be easier since the temps had stayed below freezing. Wrong! The first part of the course was pretty demoralizing. It should have been the easiest as it was snow on top of a paved road, but the it was impossible to ride in a strait line. You couldn't really pick a line and stick with it because the snow and grooves in the snow would just send you back and forth all over the trail. Every person I passed apologized for not going strait and getting in my way. I just let them know that no one could go strait and we were all fighting the same battle. I managed a pretty good time for the first lap. Though there was a lot of passing then getting stuck and getting passed and back again, still I managed to stay ahead of most people.

I must have been pushing it harder than I thought because toward the end of the first lap I just ran out of gas. I got stuck in some deep snow and just didn't have the energy to even get back on my bike. I stepped to the side and took a breather. Once I got back on my bike I slowed down the pace a bit and managed to make up a few places. I didn't even have the energy to check my watch to see how long we'd been racing, it could have been hours. I had no idea

how many laps we'd be doing and I was afraid we'd have to do 3 like last year. To my relief I saw one lap to go when I came through the start line. I managed to keep a decent pace and ended up 12th out of 18.