Cross season is officially here. I've been going after it pretty hard the last few weeks, running, training, building some speed and power during regular workouts. I am up to easily running 5-miles at  a good solid pace, which feels nice at my age to be able to make happen. I finally got the Ridley Crosswind up and going better than last year. I went through every bearing, every part, added lube, installed new cables, my new shrink cable covers and even some new swanky blue brake hoods, to cover my 6700 Shifters. I also found time over a three week period managed to remove the pair of front “sealed” bearings and all four rear “sealed” bearings in my Planet X brand carbon wheels. This required basically, taking a sharp, small bladed knife to each of the seals on each side of the little bearings. This was much cheaper than replacing them all with ceramics, replacing the hubs and or ordering replacements from American Classic, whom it appears manufactures the hubs for Planet X. I also noticed and learned I need to do more service on my cross wheels more often than once per season. Those rear hubs have so much going on, I think it would be beneficial to take a day and work on them. The gain is, watching them spin and spin forever is worthy of the time investment. This was just way more tedious and time consuming - hopefully we will have a much drier cross season here in the Midwest and I won't be washing my bike every Monday.

Sunday, September 5th 2010

I traveled down to Scioto State Forest and entered the Cap City Cyclocross Frankenbike event. This was a 50 mile ride, that was not promoted as a race, but hey, get a bunch of competitive end of the season road racers, mid-season mountain bikers and early season cross racers and what do you get? Well you get 25-30 mph from the gun for the first 4 miles of pavement, just before we made a right hand turn up the gravel road for the first hurtful beast of a climb for the day. The course was split in two halves with a short stop for me back at the car for new bottles. I choose to race my Ridley Crosswind, which seemed to be a good choice for about 85% of the course. The other remaining parts of the course were really mountain bike sections. Spencer and I rode together for most of the second half of the race he did a good job writing up more details of the event here: I ended up 13th overall with about 75 or so at the start line. A good early September sign – regarding what is in the fitness hopper. 

The bonus part of riding my cross bike in this type of race, which I found out last week at our regular cross practices here in Cbus - is that all that time spent on the cross bike was a huge confidence builder as far as handling the bike in precarious situations.

At Frankenbike, I rode and managed to finish around 12/13^th place depending on a few others and whether they actually rode the course, or “missed a few sections”. I don’t really care one way or another, I was happy to have the fitness to stay with my man Spencer, catch Marksteen, stay with Payne Leeters (who was on his cushy 29er mtb) and finish minutes behind the actual leaders.

A good day on the bike.

Saturday September 18, 2010

OVCX – Kings CX – Cyclocross Race 1 (not for series Points)

I took 8^th place at this old converted golf course, which is now a city park. My goal was to test the waters, see who’s out there, and save some berries for Sunday’s more official points race. I got a good start line call up- second row I think of the 35+ crowd, had good position going into the first turn and tried to hold that for the race. It was hot, did I mention it was hot? I don’t mind the heat, it’s just if I am going to go hard and TT for 45 min, I would prefer at least mid 80’s for cross and not the high 90’s. After lap 1 I was starting to eat into the back of the Open CAT 3’s and find some good lines on the course. My Ridley felt good as I pushed it into some corners testing the tubie tires on my carbon wheels. Lots of power to be had and power in reserve, even with 2 laps to go, even though I felt like I was fading some at the 30 min point, these were long laps and this course was not very technical. A good course, but just not too crazy from this mountain biker’s view. I like the short courses I think and enjoy them more when I am not out there doing 10 min laps. This felt way more like a roadie course and not enough of a cross course. Well organized, good food in the old Golf cart storage room.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

OVCX – Kings CX – Cyclocross Race 2 (Series Points)

Sunday I arrived plenty early to make sure I was relaxed and not rushing about, trying to get it all finished and remember everything – pre-race. I had LP and BWE in the car along with “The Motivator,” two-sets of wheels for me and several individual SS wheels belonging to LP. We got changed quickly, since LP was racing the SS race shortly after arrival. I took my time (which I love), getting warmed up, getting a few sprints in, checking out the course changes, which they basically just changed the direction we were riding and a few other areas, making it much harder - still a bit of a roadie (usgp) type of course for my taste and not enough technical bits and trees to keep things interesting. I figure if you can stay on the gas and average over or around 15 mph - the course is too fast and too much roadie - there were a few steep hills on the camel-hump - a nice section into these dark woods and over a log, then up a steep short hillside - the finish line/lap area was defiantly uphill and cause for some increase of HR - and Oh, the friggin sandpit was a bitch. It was an uphill battle and after some serious up and down sections that got your HR up then a sweet sweeping downhill tight around a tree then uphill into the sandpit with a giant lip to pull your front wheel up and get the back end of your bike out- I heard days later they dumped a ton of new sand in there which makes total sense - it was some life sucking sand for sure. I wonder where you purchase life sucking sand? I was battling it out with my teammate, Doug, passing him, he would pass me, I even caught up to Spencer  from B1(Open CAT 3's) and with Ray yelling at me(after he finished), I dug deep, found something I didn't know I had and sprinted elbow to elbow into a sweeping right into a sweeping left uphill, then a wide fast sweeping right uphill into the finish line - just nipping Doug and Spencer at the line by a horsehair. Those guys are tough! We were just having fun and it was great!  I had absolutely not-a-clue where I finished, but had I known I might have ridden a bit harder with 3/2 laps to go, to catch a few in front of me. I guess Doug and I should be working together and not messing about racing each other - ha. We wore timing chips, so after the fact it was interesting to see my lap times.

10th Place finish.

Not awful - not great -  but it's a start to the OVCX series for me and a good solid finish with no mechanical issues.