A little backtracking race reports..

I owe you guys these...but since they are so old now, they will be short.

PA CX State Champs B race - Really cool course, hope it comes back next year only bigger. From the gun Colin Prensky takes off and I take off in pursuit. Couldn't quite close the gap. Zach Adams bridged up to me and then up to Colin leaving me still in pursuit. On the 3rd lap, I catch (they let me catch) Colin and Zach and ride their wheels until the penultimate lap through the barriers. I focused on NOT crashing so much that I stared at the barriers until I rode right into them. It only cost me a couple seconds, but it was enough to shatter me. So I soloed in for 3rd. Zach and Colin were killin' it.

Staten Island CX B Race - AWESOME course. Weather was just what cross should be - absolutely atrocious. Rain, wind, cold, tons of sloppy sloppy mud and a beach run. On the first lap, Colin and I get a good little gap. 2nd lap I crash hardcore because I had two pairs of gloves one and my hands popped off the hoods riding through a culvert. Once catching back on, we just drilled it all the way home. Colin dropped me like bad habit in the last 200 meters. The atmosphere around this race was amazing. They had killer handmade trophies and Belgian waffles (pics to come). And like 50lbs of bacon.

Phillipsburg Riverfront Cross - Props to Bill for putting on a great race. The course was awesome and it was well put together. Its too bad his race was the same day the big MAC race in Reston, VA. Turnout was low, but it still was great. I knew I had to continue my progression from 3rd, to 2nd, and to 1st. So I went as hard as I could right off the line and never looked back. Soloed in for 1st I think about a minute 30 ahead of 2nd place. Finally got to put the arms up in victory salute, even if I did have a retarded looking face. Props to Lou Devlin for coming out and doing well in his first cross race.

The real excitement came from the A race which I jumped right into after my race. I was sweaty from the first race and it was getting colder and windier out. Around the 4th lap, I smelled hot dogs at the top of the run up where all the heckling was taking place. So I yelled "get me a hot dog!" The next lap, my buddy Sam, had a hot dog and PBR waiting to hand me. I grabbed the hot dog, shoved it down my throat, and took the PBR and chugged it as I rode the next half lap or so. Beer and a hot dog had never tasted so good! I was bonking hardcore at that point and I think those are the only things that saved me enough so I could finish. I still have mustard stains on my bar tape and hoods.

Phelps Cyclocross Report

On Saturday I raced the Phelps School Cyclocross race in Malvern, PA. It was a well put together race and a great venue. Its a shame that not many people showed up. Hopefully next year more will come out.

It was a nice course. Not very technical, but had a very tricky off-camber turn that was basically a giant U-Turn on the side of a hill. Mix in a little bit of rain, mud, and shitty brakes packed full of grass clippings and you have a teeth clenching experience.

The Men's B race started pretty fast as it was going to be a fight to the first turn which was more than 90 degrees and off camber. I wiped out in the last turn on the first lap and as I rolled onto my back I saw Woody go by and knew I had to get my ass back in gear. If you know Woody, you know the guy has a 1km sprint, so you have to go with him or lose him.

Half way through lap two I had caught Woody and we worked together and started putting some time into any chasers. We had a solid 40 second gap by lap 4 and knew we would go 1-2 as long as we stayed upright. I was stronger up the run ups and climbs (I think), but Woody was much stronger on the long flat sections.
So last lap I would not come around Woody and was planning to hammer the final climb, but Woody hammered the shit out of the long flat section and dropped me. The guy has a motor. Kind of annoying to be dropped on a flat section. WTF? If you look at the HR file above, you'll see my HR didn't go any higher in the finish - I was toast when he attacked. Anyway, I came in like 10 seconds behind Woody for 2nd place and a minute ahead of the next finisher.



I have to work on my facial expressions when I race.

I developed a cramp in my left hamstring during the race and figured I might as well ensure I can't walk the next day, so I entered the A race. Plus there were only 9 guys in it. I finished 6th and got $10!

Charm City Cross 2/3/4 Men

The race was awesome. Nice technical course without much hills (both super strong points for me). 3 barrier sections. An awesomely long sand pit.


I registered late and they staged by race number, so I started in the very back of a field of at least 100 people. By the end of the 1st lap I had clawed my way all the way through them and was in no man's land between the 10 man group that got off the front (like yesterday) and everyone else. Somewhere around lap 2 a guy dropped off the initial selection of 10 and I marked him the rest of the race (4 more laps I think).

Problem. Every time I jumped back on my bike, my tubeless rear tire "burped" and let some air out. I really need to re-glue a set of tubulars. So by the last lap I was running like 15 psi. On one of of the of camber turns in the last lap, the tire rolled and send me to the deck. It stayed on, so I hopped right up ( I think I'm skilled at crashing and getting up again in a very smooth, "I tried that" manner). Upon landing on my saddle I noticed it was cocked about 60 degrees out of the proper orientation. So I grabbed it between my thighs and wrenched it back to almost straight.

I was caught by a chaser because of the wreck, but he tanked it in the last set of barriers, so I pulled out an 11th place. Not bad for starting 80+ back.

First Cross Race Report

Nittany Lion Cross. It was pretty bad ass. Nice fast course. 2 sand pits.

I raced the Men's 2/3/4 or B men. Things started out good and I ended up on the tail end of a 15 guy group that was off the front. Somewhere around the 3rd lap my left lung decided to blow up and I started going backwards. Fast. I think it was because of the hard start in the cold air, but it hurt so bad I thought I was going to have to pull out. Also, I burped the rear tire somehow (I am running tubeless) and although it sealed right up, it lost a good bit of pressure. So for the rest of the race I thought I'd lose my tire every turn.

Later in the 3rd lap I got caught by a group of 4 guys. I realized that I was much faster through the turns, but lacked power in the hills. So a lap later I started drilling it through the turns and dropped those guys and caught Colin Sandberg and Thomas Wood who had dropped off the original group. We were together for the final 2 laps. I knew I wouldn't out sprint them, but I was still able to carry a little more speed through the turns so tried to work that, but to no avail. They stayed on my wheel and romped me in the sprint.

So, I finished 15th. I spent the whole race, 45 minutes, in zone 5, or above 180 BPM. Some superstar 15 yr old won by a mile.

I did get to see Coach Young again, which was great. I love that man. Just wish I had some good news to tell him.

Effed up my Tubulars

Now, I have glued many a set of tubulars without incident. However, last night's gluing went horribly, horribly wrong.

The whole thing could have been a scene from a Griswald Family Bike Shop Adventure. The process started normally a few days ago when I stripped the old glue and began the layering process. Finally, 3 days of glue layering and setting later, I applied the 3rd and final coat to the rims and began to mount the tires.

As I got to the bottom of the rim to push on the final 6-7inches of tire, it became quite apparent that it wasn't going to happen. I tried so hard that got blisters on my thumbs. I had stretched the tires for 24 hours previous to the whole process, but for some reason, they were no longer stretched! I had to act fast cause glue was quickly setting up. In my haste, I began grabbing the rim the help leverage the tire on at which point my nitrile gloves had become glued to the rim. So I had to take them off. Problem was now my hands were covered in the glue and my fingers were stuck together.

If you know me, then you know a bout of profanity laden Tourrets spewed from my mouth for the next 5 minutes. I finally wrestled the tire on with my paws, but the result was such a catastrophe that it is un-fuckin'-rideable. As I drowned my sorrows with beer and spent the next half hour scraping glue and the first layer of skin from my hands, I realized the temperature in the basement was much colder at the time of mounting the tires than it was when I had initially stretched them. I'm guessing this was the problem.

Who knows. I quit.