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MRC Cyclocross |
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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Steve Morse
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Wednesday, 05 December 2007 |
Minuteman Road Club Cyclocross
Wrentham, MA
December 2, 2007
Winter has arrived in southern New England! I woke up this fine Sunday morning to face a thermometer that read 21 degrees. I threw all my winter racing crap in a bag, loaded up the car with bikes and such, then headed out to Wrentham, about 20 minutes from my house, as the crow flies.
Got there a little early for my masters 35+ race, but that's OK, I got to sit in my car and listen to tunes as I layered up, and gave my legs a nice coating of Greyhound Juice Super Strength. A few minutes with the heat on full blast on my gams, the muscle-warming salve started to kick. It was time to venture out and do course recon. I spied Matt Hersey getting ready too, and he would be doing the same race as me...cool.
This is the same venue where we have our early-season training races, so I have an intimate knowledge of the layout. Its just that the conditions were a little different than I was used to. Frozen solid tundra. The entire course consists of mowed paths through 2 giant grass fields, and a short woods section that is super-fast. With the frozen ground today, it may as well have been pavement. Other features include big log near the start finish that was bunny hop or run, your choice, and then 2 sets of barriers strategically placed in the grass mazes. With the frozen ground, running through the barriers might have felt and sounded like tap dancing in cycling shoes!
As I prerode, I wore my big army parka to try and not get cold. I think maybe it was a bad idea though, because at the end of a low speed barrier dismount, I tried to jump back on, and the parka got caught on my bike. I smashed my groin on the back of the nice hard, cold, bare plastic seat. This made me a very unhappy dude for a few minutes. I shook it off, and then went back to my car to finish warming up on the trainer.
Race time, I stayed warm on the line huddled in my parka, and the Greyhound Juice was still doing its job under my leg warmers. Time to go. I had selected to only wear a windproof base layer and my winter skinsuit during the race, so I would find out soon whether I won that gamble or not. No big winter gloves either, just some windproof race gloves. Brrrrrr.
We go off. About 35 guys sprint down the dirt road into the first grass patch. I thought I had a decent start, but I soon discovered that I had a serious problem, my bike wouldn't shift up to harder gears, so there I was, able to go faster, spinning like an idiot and people were passing me. Legs must have been going 150 rpm to try and keep up. I suppose all sand that my shifter ate a few races ago (which I thought I had cleaned out) had finally come back to haunt me. Meanwhile, we passed the first barriers and headed into the woods, which is a long power section. I kept fighting with the shifter, and eventually it started shifted down, and I sprinted to make up lost places. I did pass a few guys here, but the shifting problems continued into the beginning of lap 2, so I made the tough decision to pit in and get my B bike to finish the race on.
I basically threw my bike at the poor nuetral support guy as I dismounted, and then mounted my other bike, the old Kona Major Jake. Immediately the differences between the two bikes became apparant to me as I tried to get familiar with the pit rig as fast as possible. The B bike just couldn't handle turns or accelerate as well as my A bike. I was fighting with it in every turn and the old Ultegra cranks felt all mushy compared to the SRAM Rival cranks on my good one. Still, I sprinted as hard as possible to try and catch the group I was with before I pitted.
All things considered, I rode pretty solid the rest of the race. Luckily, since the course/conditions were fairly non technical, the not-so-good-handling qualities of my B bike didn't affect me too much. I just wish I was able to lay down power like I could on the other one. I have a total new appreciation for that thing. I hammered past a few more guys to score 11th. Not too bad for me, but I could have done better. If it were not for the mechanical on the first lap, I probably could have been top 5. In the end it was my fault for not replacing the shifter, so no sense in trying to blame an inanimate object for my mediocre result.
So, with this race done, I am now on my last week of racing for the year. Next week is the Verge double-header, series finale in my home state of RI.
Steve
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