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UNH Campus Cross |
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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Alan Starrett
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Saturday, 11 November 2006 |
UNH Campus Cross
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH
 | | A clean start - pun intended. |
I did the UNH "Live Free or Ride" cross race last year and vowed to never attend it again. Last year the course lacked creativity and was simply alternating sections of wet cow pasture and double track dirt road. I was extremely biased against this race becuase in less than 2 minutes after the start I was out of the race from breaking a chain at the bottom of an underground stream turned mudhole. Well, it is a new year and the race has a new name and a new location. Since I am all about forgive and forget, plus I needed to keep racing between Verge NECCS races, I headed on over to NH in the team ghetto van.
I had high hopes that the course design had improved in a year. Even though it was a beautiful sunny day I was a little worried because it had poured rain several days prior. The promoter sent out an email warning the course was in his words "MUDDDDDDDY." Now I am not afraid of mud, in fact I usually prefer a more technical course. I mean technical in terms of a lot of corners, varying terrain and slick conditions, not a flat out mud run. Heading out for a quick lap to check out the course before registering my hopes bolstered a bit. The start was a little sketchy running about 30 yards on a dirt road before dumping 90 degrees right into a soggy field. No uber wet, YET, but pretty greasy sliding to weed out the brave from the timid.
From there it was a nice series of chicanes in the open field interrupted by a set of barriers before dumping down to a short section of wood chip trail. Then up out of the trail back into the open field for another chicane before dropping down towards another open field.
Now this is where things really started to concern me. The whole lower part of the course traversed an open field, that in the previous days of rain, had become literally a soaking sod sponge. When I say traversed, I mean Robin Hood's barn style. Down, across, up, down, up, across and out. In totally dry conditions these might be considered some horsepower sections. Today, in these conditions, I knew they were going to be a flat out death march.
I decided to keep spirits high. It was a great day and I wanted the training. I got registered and went through my typical warm up. Given the conditions, part of my pre-race prep was a healthy coating of cooking spray and all the vital moving parts of my bike.
We were lining up for the start and as part of pre-race instructions the race promoter let us know that the top 3 were getting merchandise. A fellow racer said something to the effect of "Sweet, I'm going to trash $1000 worth of equipment today for a pair of socks." "Yup, 'bout right." I thought. I was still trying to keep those spirits high though. They were running the Collegiate A race on course at the same time we were racing as Elite Masters. The collegiate racers would be given a 2 min gap before we started. Sounded a little confusing for the officials to me, especially since they were not going to pull lapped riders. "Stay positive." I thought.
The gun when off, or whistle as it were, and we charged off the start line. I got a pretty good hole shot but a delayed click in to my pedals prevented me from railing the first corner as hard as I had wanted. I skated around the first two corners near the front and right away it was apparent that Troy Fenderson and John Meerse had the legs and the motivation to make it a hard day in the saddle.
Troy blasted his way through the top section of the course taking the lead. I was in pursuit and John was not far behind. By the time we hit the real mud bog on the lower section if the course I was gaining on Troy. No doubt due in part to my Panaracer Cinder X tires giving me a little more bite over his tire choice for the day. Whatever the right combination for the day was John seemed to have it. About the time I connected with Troy, John rode right on through both of us. I decided that pace was a bit much for me and chose to stick with Troy to see what developed.
Well, what developed was John just spinning away in the mud and gaining a little more time lap after lap. Troy and I were left battling each other for second place spending much of the race leap frogging one another and never getting more than a couple bike lengths between us. I quipped to Troy at one point that it felt like we were racing in slow motion. The mud was ridiculous, there was no escaping it. 70 percent of the course was 3 meters wide of bottomless wet sod churned up into an energy sapping quagmire. I was zig-zagging across the course most laps trying to find a better line. There was none. There was no line, no groove, no traction. To add insult to injury my bike, and everyone else's I'm sure, weighed an extra 15 pounds after the first lap.
Despite the deplorable conditions, or maybe because of them, we were picking up and passing stragglers from the Collegiate A racers that started 2 minutes ahead of us. We were also lapping riders in our own class, I think maybe some of them twice, but it was hard to tell with everyone covered head to toe in mud. I knew this was going to be a mess for the officials to score, no pulled riders right?
I tend to never look at lap cards until late in the race, sometimes I find it demoralizing if I look up and see a high lap count to go. My mental clock keeps track of how far into the race I am and usually when I am ready to look up it is a couple to go. Well, my mental clock was ticking away and I was feeling close to wanting to be done. When I picked my head up for lap cards it read 4 to go. "4 to go!" You have to be kidding me!" Nope 4 to go sucker. Keep churning that mud for another 4 laps.
With John going up the road as it were I was left trying to figure out how I was going to get the better of Troy. No small task when you are up against a competitor with a palmares like Troy's. I figured my best shot would be one last greasy climb out of a mudhole onto the only stretch of dry ground on the course that also lead to the finish. He had been having trouble with this spot most of the day, lamenting his choice of the Tufo Prestige LPS. Well, being the "old" pro that he his, Troy knew that I knew and he decided his best shot was to ramp up the pace as much as his traction would allow across the boggy ground for 100 yards before the climb. He guessed right because that put me in to just enough deficit for him to snap the elastic before reaching the climb, never giving me the chance to exploit his tire choice.
I was left to roll in for third, thankful that I did not get hurt, break my bike or DNF. I looked at my HRM and I had been out in the muck for over 55 minutes. 10 minutes longer than the race was suppposed to be. I knew my mental clock was not that far off.
After a long clean up and a longer wait for results to be posted, Troy and I had the pleasure of respectfully debating the official that we finished 2nd and 3rd not 6th and 7th. As a result of my efforts I was awarded, in what I think is a fine bit of irony, a pair of socks.
It is not about the prize it is about the competition of which there was plenty. As I said before I did not get hurt nor did my bike so I was happy. That being said I think this race still has a long way to go. If you take out the rain, the course design was better than last year but good course design should still try to account for rain by running the course on a track that can get muddy but hold up. This course did not hold up, it blew up. Unfortunately it was also fairly disorganized from the start as well. Trying to run two categories at the same time and not pull riders is too hard to keep track of. There was also only 5 minutes scheduled between races. With a 6 minute plus lap that was never going to work. The first race started 20 minutes late and it just grew from there. I don't want to bash the promoter. We put on a race every year and I know how hard it is to do. It is a pretty thankless job and I am very thankful for promoters that put on races so we have the opportunity to compete. In the end though, a race is a product. I tried this race two years in a row to give it a fair shot. I think next year I will give it a pass.
Big Al
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; "A clean start - pun intended.")
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