Plymouth Festival of Cross - Day 2

I borrowed a friends ‘cross bike (a nice steel IF Planet Cross) and prayed it would be relatively dry for my first ever cross race. The remnants of tropical storm Ida battered us with pretty heavy rain the day before, but Sunday was forecasted to be pretty nice with temps in the 60’s. Not what you’d call Belgian ‘cross conditions by any means, but I’ll take it.

However, the dry and warm weather got a late start this morning, and I drove down, registered, and warmed up in a light, but raw, rain. My first warm-up lap was not so successful, as I managed to get off-course and ended up in a back parking lot, but I managed to get in a couple of solid warm-up laps prior to the start of the juniors race, and I actually felt pretty confident in my bike-handling and ability to climb the few good hills on this course. I had inflated the tires to ~40psi prior to leaving the house, but decided to let out 5-10psi more as we lined up for the start based on my expectation that the sandy course conditions would deteriorate (they did).

We were staged and started a little ways back from the finish line, before the start of the orange barriers. This was not such a good choice (in my opinion), as the sprint and jockeying for the hole shot, combined with the narrowing of the barriers, caused a pretty nasty pile-up on the left side about 3 seconds into the race – no shit. My friend Erik had started on that side, so I devoted about a split-second to hoping that he wasn’t involved before I maneuvered my way around the splayed bikes and bodies and sprinted into the first dirt section trying to gain back some of the time that I lost to the folks who were in front of it.

I was able to pass some guys over the first couple of laps, primarily making my moves on the flat grass sections and on a couple of the little climbs. I was steadily working up my nerves to start making moves in the woods, but I wasn’t really comfortable bombing the slick dirt stuff until the 4th & 5th laps.

The hardest section of the day was a fairly steep little grunt up behind the football bleachers, but I was able to stay on my bike for this one on each lap. However, I did find that I wasn’t able to climb it as fast as some of the other guys, as my tires would spin-out if I rotated them above a certain rate. I suspect that either better tires, or maybe a lower tire pressure would have helped me here (or tubulars!). This section was immediately followed by a steadily-worsening section of deep mud puddles and ruts followed by another short climb. Not my favorite section, for sure.

Though I was certainly suffering, I realized that I was smiling on the 3rd-5th laps – I was having a blast. During the fourth lap (I think), when I was getting really comfortable and starting to take some chances, I could see that I was gaining on Michael Brier (who had been ahead of me for the three prior laps). As is often the case, I suffered from overconfidence coming into the set of obstacles, and came in with a lot of speed. I could see that there were some spectators congregated there, with cameras in hand, so I decided I was going to nail the dismount and remount like a pro. Ha! As I swung my leg over to the bike, fast approaching the first obstacle, I missed hitting the brakes and was fast approaching a collision with it. I tried to salvage it and pop my right foot out from the pedal, but it wouldn’t budge – too much mud and grass build-up – so I ended up panicking and sliding down just short of the barrier. Real smooth, I hope someone caught it on camera! A guy I had just passed then came past me, but I was able to make up the ground I lost pretty quickly and vowed to be better on the last lap.

I was also pretty hypoxic at this point, and I thought for a second that I spotted a spectre on the course. I entered the wooded section just after the obstacles, start bombing the off-camber hill when I look up to see a man watching me from the shadows, holding a bike with a rear disc wheel. Are you kidding me, a disc wheel in the mud? Of course, it was just Paul Curley, watching our sorry race with his infamous rear disc (on a cross bike?!?)

I managed to pass Michael and a couple of others during the fourth lap, though there was one guy who I just couldn’t shake. Nonetheless, I put a little time into him and was determined to hold it until the end. Ugh……it was not to be. The guy just would not go away, and he was able to spin up the big climb a little faster than me – I was cursing my tires at this point. He passed me here, which was captured nicely in the race photos posted online. There was another guy just in front of us who I was dead-set on catching before the finish, but I just couldn’t gain enough time on him, especially with my ineptitude in the obstacle-section. I ended up finishing 11th, which I felt somewhat proud of for my first race. As usual, I spent the next couple of days re-thinking the race to see how I could’ve improved. I really regretted having lost to these two guys, who both finished seconds ahead of me.

The aftermath was one very dirty bike, which got very well acquainted with my garden hose. The grass was especially difficult to remove, but it was a small price to pay for such a great time. I can’t wait until my next race, good times for sure.

Things I will improve on for next race:
- I will lube up my pedals, to hopefully avoid any issues getting my cleats in due to mud
- lower tire pressure for bad conditions
- practice dismounts and remounts
- Go HARD at the start to make the hole-shot!