Big Bikes

12.5.06

Cycle-Smart International Cyclocross

Here I continue my fruitless masquerade as a Cyclocross rider, in this installment I venture out to Northampton a land of women who like women and hippies who like their parent’s money and not bathing. This is one of the few races I have done before so I had some idea what I was in for…and that would be a treat, a treat in the form of a ‘cross course sculpted like a fine Rodin, laid out like a Tibetan Mandala. I was not disappointed, all was the same as I remembered with the exception of the deadly corner which had so rocked Logan Hodson (a dominant force in The Killer B’s two seasons ago before he was abducted by aliens with chronically sparse facial hair who yearned to learn his secrets of massive beard cultivation) just after he took the hole shot.
I arrived plenty early, immediately got on the bike and began spinning around, registered, balmed my legs up with “I can’t believe it’s not Mace, the Ointment”,
and got a couple laps in on the course.
The course has a paved start into a few tight corners, then the first of three jumps over these mini train tracks, a little bit too much pedaling through a grassy field, a ride/run through a sandpit, a few more grassy corners, a paved lead into a massive, brutal run-up, a few rooty corners, a small descent, more grass, another train track jump, a ride/run-up, a set of double barriers, then back onto the pavement. Not too bad of a singlespeed course, even the paved section wasn’t that awful, I was usually able to tack onto a few geared guys and draft along to the run-up where I would come around them and get a gap. Even after all the ‘cross practice I’ve been doing I felt like a drunk cape buffalo trying to run on it’s hind legs over the double barriers, everything else I felt decent on.

One positive thing about starting at the back of the pack and starting badly to boot is that you spend the entire race passing dudes. The drawback is that all your progress nets you is a barely top thirty finish (29th actually, about as at the bottom of the top thirty as one gets.
You know what’s funny? (I mean besides those stickers people put on their cars that make it look like a baseball is smashing through their window, those get me every time and I laugh and laugh) When a race goes well, or reasonably well you don’t have as many funny anecdotes. So why you might ask do I not have any funny anecdotes? Well, wise-ass the tippety-top of the top twenty is not too bad for me in a ‘cross race at this point, I’m working on it O.K..

Thanks To Jason Girouard for the sick photos
www.flickr.com/photos/jasonwg