The Chronicles of Just Another Bike Racer: Cross Chronicles #1

First and for most I must say, cycle cross is HARD!!!!!!!!! Its fun, but its a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be. Anyway, we got to the course and only have enough time to ride the course once before the other races start. it was a pretty smooth course, with only 2 barrier sections, the second one was about 100 feet away from the finish. Riding the junior race seemed like a good idea to preview the course. Dan Bush, younger brother of Texas Road House rider Rob Bush, is a cycle cross freak! Going into these races I knew squat about racing cycle cross. After riding the juniors race with Dan, I knew about going over barriers, sand pits and grassy sections!

In the first lap another junior, Dan, and I were off the front. We were going through a 120 degree, grassy turn, when the other junior goes over a grass-covered, hole that was deep enough to make his back wheel come off the ground and before I could figure out what happened, I nail it and flip over the bars. Unfortunately my rear wheel comes up and takes out Dan's front wheel, and he also goes down. We get up and access the damage (which was minimal thankfully, the only casualty was my knee, it caught the top of my bars pretty hard). We then start hammering to catch up with the other junior. The rest of the race (2 laps) was uneventful. The big benefit was getting to know the course pretty well. I would hate to have the endo experience in the larger race.

I then chill for about 20 mins and hop up to get a front line starting position for B-men(cat 3/4) race. The race starts and I was 4th going into the first turn. I had no idea what the tempo is usually like in cycle cross, so I just hammered for the first 2 laps and broke away with a MIke Purvis. He races mtn bikes, but this was also his first cross race. With 3 laps to go he made a move that made me look like I was standing still. He probably had 30 seconds on me half a lap later. Two other guys come across to me and we start working, but I knew if we were head and head by the barriers it probably wouldn't work out in my favor. In the last lap I made 2 big moves and dropped one guy. The other one was right behind me by the barriers. I got clipped in as soon as I could after the barriers, but not soon enough. He smoked me in the sprint. I was pretty disappointed with 3rd place, even though it was my first cross race. That just leaves more of a fire burning until next time.