U.S. Grand Prix of Cyclocross #1 Planet Bike Cup Day 2

After all of my whining (in jest) on day 1 about the perfect weather and conditions being inappropriate for cyclocross, mother nature took note and delivered on the weather for day 2. Before the race, I opted for an early brunch at one of my Madison favorites, El Dorado Grill. I watched the rain coming down in sheets from the gray sky as I scarfed down a warm stack of blue corn pancakes with cascabel chili maple syrup and red chili butter and a side of bacon. Today would be a good day for cyclocross. After breakfast we rushed to the venue to see the homies (Josh and Tim) roll out in the SS race. I recon’d the course and took note that all of the off camber sections were shredded to pieces. With continued rain and thunderstorms forecast throughout the day I knew things would only get more awesome.

For some reason getting to the start line always seems to be an adventure for me in that there always seems to be more things to do than I have allotted myself time to do them in. This day was no exception as I scrambled around trying get things in order before staging time. But, because this was a big important race it seems that the adventure/drama factor had to be cranked up a notch. I headed out for my warmup at the normal time after pinning my number to my jersey and leaving it in the car. About a ½ mile to a mile from the venue I stood on the pedals to accelerate as I crossed a major road. Ching! I looked down to see what I intuitively knew, but did not want to acknowledge. Chain broken. After muttering a few curse words I quickly collected my bike and busted chain and started running back to the venue to search out the SRAM neutral support tent. Luckily, I found them and they hooked me up with a new chain no questions asked. Disaster #1 averted. I rolled back to the car to don my jersey and get back lickety split for staging.

As I got back to the car the rain started to fall hard again, and I ducked inside to stay warm and dry while getting ready. After pulling on my jersey I tried several times to zip it up but couldn’t quite get it done. After inspecting the zipper a little more closely I realized that the bottom piece of plastic on the zipper had broken off inside the…thingy. Anyway, the bottom line was that unless I wanted to rock the flying tails look, this jersey was done. I invoked Arrested Development in my head as I yelled to nobody in particular “come on!” Luckily I was wise enough to bring an extra jersey, and quickly made the number switch, being careful not to mess up the zipper this time.

As staging time drew near the weather only seemed to get worse. I was waiting underneath the shelter area watching water pouring off the eaves and lighting flash in the distance when I heard the distinct “tack…tack, tack…tack, tack, tack” of hail. As things went from awesome to more awesome the announcers got on the p.a. and told us that they were delaying staging by 20 minutes to let the worst weather pass. Somehow the race management timed things perfectly as the weather seemed to clear up right around the time we were called to stage. I had starting position that wasn’t terrible, but not great either. I was probably about 5 rows back from the start, with 3-4 rows behind me. I prepared myself mentally for the start.

At the gun I got clipped in fairly quickly but was hesitant to give it full gas, knowing we were going to be flying into a right hand sweeper off the pavement into wet grass and mud. This fact didn’t seem to deter anyone else though as guys flew buy me leading into the first turn. Amazingly nobody went down, and not amazingly I got shuffled to the back of the pack. This is normally a sucky position to be in, but when you are in a muddy race with about 60 guys in front of you it REALLY sucks. I went to work passing guys as soon as I could, but I knew that being hesitant at the start had cost me some spots I would most likely never get back. Once again, the importance of a good start in CX racing was made abundantly clear as I slogged along in the latter third of the field.

Happily I was able to pass a lot of guys during the race and claw my way back up into the top ½ of the field by races end. I might have done even a little better had I remembered to put in toe spikes before the race. Total amateur mistake. I got killed every time we had to dismount and run as I had zero traction. Ah well. Although I would have liked to have done better overall, a top 30 placing in a 35+ masters field at a well attended USGP race was not something to go home and cry about. I actually left the race hopeful that I had room for improvement, and could legitimately be in the top 10-15 in a USGP level 2/3 race and in the top 20-25 in a 35+ race. Time will tell I guess.

Omaha Cyclocrash...err cross Weekend recap coming soon