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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Josh West
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Sunday, 28 October 2007 |
Granogue Cross
UCI-C1, MAC#1
10/20/2007
 | | Photo copyright 2007 Michael L. Kirk |
Rain or shine, the cross race at Granogue is always a blast. The course is pretty hilly for CX. In the rain or mud it is extra challenging and when it is dry it is really fast with an above average number opportunities to use your MTB biking skills. I have started this CX season racing the Elite Masters class. Feeling up to the challenge, I lined up with these seasoned CX nuts at 12:15. As usual, no call-up for me and I ended up in the last couple of rows of the stage. I hated when this happened racing B's, but being my first time racing the Elite Masters, I was content in the back.
Anyhow the gun went off and we shot out of the gate FAST. I was no longer happy to sit back and I pushed hard to make it to about mid pack by the time we hit the tape. Things were going OK. A few guys passed me pretty quickly. As we got it to the first technical section there was a back-up at a sharp, off-camber, uphill turn.
A bunch off guys got held up here and I kind of skidded out of control to avoid the mess. I basically had to stop and take a foot out to keep balance. Anyhow, I somehow lost my chain in all of this. Immediately after the uphill turn that was busting everyone was a fast downhill. I figured rather than manually placing my chain back on the ring I could pedal it back on during my descent. This failed miserably as my chain was nicely caught between the BB and crank. So I had to sacrifice full steam on the downhill and stop to reset the chain.
At this point I was dead last. Caught up/passed a few guys pretty quickly and was on my way to catching the group I was with before the chain loss. Then I lost my chain again. This time it was just before or during the run-up. And again it was stuck nicely. And again I was in last place. This time it was much harder to catch back up. Just too tired.
It was however a blast to be able to ride the entire course with no one in my way. I was riding a set a Panaracer Cinder X tires with about 48 PSI. They were a perfect match for the slightly muddy, tight, and off-camber course In the end I managed to catch/pass a few riders and ended up placing 46th out of 58 starters. As I expected, the Elite Masters is a bit more challenging then the B's.
Josh West
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; "Photo copyright 2007 Michael L. Kirk")
