Waffles and watching the women’s World Championship Cyclocross race from Valkenburg in a language I have no hope of understanding…. American Katie Compton was leading in lap 3 but finished 2nd. Still great for USA riders to be in the front of the field. 2 more were in the top 10 – 6th Kaitlin Keough and 8th Elle Andersen
North Carolina Cyclocross race #13 in Southern Pines. I always have a good day on the sandy course behind Sandhills Community College and today was no different. I got a call up, so I got to start on the front row and battled in the top 10 early. Each lap there was 5 spots I had to get off the bike, a couple of them just pure evil. I held on for 10th!
After my race, I joined Clay, Kay and Jeff for a nearly 3 hour road ride…. when we got back, I played with panning before helping break down the course!
Thanks to Clay for this picture of me racing and cheering me on!
A quick cleaning of the ‘cross bike
Sunday’s race, same 8:30 start. All those muddy tracks from yesterday are now frozen. It was down to 19 degrees overnight (Glad I have good sleeping bags!) and I couldn’t even ride the course on my warmup. I even considered not racing….. for a second.
Again I had an easy start (read I was not aggressive) and it took awhile to get around less technical riders, but making a new track just off the edge of the frozen ones worked, the up/down/up/down whoops were still not ride-able. But I finished a touch better today, up to 12th.
Up early for the 8:30am start. I slept great in the Flippac, despite the cold and snow all night.
Frame grab from the GoPro on my body from one of my many falls.
Carry the bike.
My race was just OK< it was fun, but since I have not been racing, I didn’t have an aggressive start and ended up behind folks who couldn’t ride stuff I could.
I finally settled into my on the bike, off the bike, carry the bike, push the bike, repeat. There was so much snow and we were the first to race, I was pulled after only 1 lap or almost 30 minutes. Finished 17th.
As the day went on, a race groove was formed and then became a mud track.
The moment you regret making your racing kit white!
Save the bike!
I am not sure what was worse? Deep snow or mud….
If you fall, at least make a snow angle a heckler yelled and she did it!
Nobody ever said I was smart. The weekend cyclocross racing was in Hendersonville, about 3.5 hours from home, and my race was at 8:30, so I left after work into the worst of the snow storm, and the state decided not to salt for….
But the finish line that night was why I wanted to come, but this was more snow than I was planning for. Over 12 inches!
Back to racing. After over a year off (paying for a wedding, etc) I toed the line in cyclocross again.
I ran a GoPro, this is my second trip through the sand pit…
That is close!
The Cat 4/5 winner – I heard he is a National BX champion…
Just like a day at the beach…
My students at work!
The end of road season? Cyclocross starts soon, despite my lack of fitness I pulled my cross bike out, changed the bar tape, and added slicks and did my long ride on it.
Back to ‘cross. The season is half over and this was only my 3rd race. The first two showed I had no speed, but today was better. I love the course at Salisbury and after starting next to the last row, I climbed through the field to finish 30th of the 49. With the talented racers in my field, I was happy, had a great battle with several guys I used to race around, and even caught and passed the jerk (work friendly term) that rammed into me on the first lap.
The day started before dawn for the drive to Lenoir and the first race of the 2016-17 North Carolina Cyclocross Series. Turns out tennis does not help one bit for cycling – I finished about 5 from dead last, but this picture from Sam captures the moment… this is the last lap and coming out of the last turn, the lap before I had caught this guy but took a beer hand-up (illegal, but it’s ‘cross) and had to work to catch him again, as I started my sprint, the chain slipped (why I am about to go over the bars) so no fun sprint to the line for us.
Then Sam and I visited Henry River Mill Village (it’s own post) and headed for a hike a part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail to the Upper and Lower Gragg Prong Waterfalls and Hunt-Fish Falls. We got a late start, and I decided to turn around before it got dark, as it was it was after 5:30 when we got back to the truck.
Cruising along dirt roads in the mountains
Finally we got on the foggy Blue Ridge Parkway and headed for a campground for the night.
Dinner, a small fire, a quick card game and off to bed!
