After a full 6 days of being sick, coughing, snot flying everywhere, two days off work I managed to finish the race today with some good result. My goals for Saturday morning were to sleep in and get to the race site around 11:30 or so. I wanted to get a good quality pre-ride of the course in before the first race at noon and be better prepared for the 1:00 P.M. StartTime. I didn't get myself organized, after arriving at the parking lot, with enough time to pre-ride before the C's, but I did get a good warm up, and get out for a double lap of the course just after the "C" race finished. Good stuff.
The crazy part of the day, while I was pumping up the tires, was seeing the USA Cycling race official back all the racers up a large distance from their BIKES! What the??? Yep, there was a
"lemans" style start. This meant the bikes were separated from the racer, requiring a distance run and creative mount onto your steed. As I watched the "C's" take off, I was wondering if Andy would do this for t
he other races for the day? Well he did. My big ol' group of about 40 in the "B's" had to start this way. EXCITING Stuff. Thanks Andy!
With that out of the way, I focused on tires and wheels and tire pressure during my pre-ride and finding good lines to keep the brakes off. I decided against the carbon tubie wheels, with the large amount of wind in a few key parts of the course. No advantage running lighter wheels/tubie's if they are wind sails.
The Lemans start certainly proved to be a possible place to 'blow up' before even getting on the bike. Here I thought I had a good run, but after looking at the photos, I was slowish. But I recovered some time, because of my super double secret technique and placement of the bike. Once on the bike, I managed to get top 13 or so before the first two turns and into the large puddle of water in sand. The course then got super skinny into some sand, then into slick mud, some roots, a drop off almost into the resavour water itself then a few twisty turns into a giant field of swashbuckling mud. This mud field proved to be an area of challenge for some, but I managed to plow through it every time without issue. On the first two laps, some thought it could be done double wide, but it was more of a solo rider type of section. Once out of pig slop we rolled onto some walking trail of gravel baby heads and dry ground and then onto some limestone walking paths that zig zagged around in the woods. There were three tight-ish turns, some were really slowing down for, but with the right gear and body english, they were not pedal proof. Once off the limestone, we ran downhill on some very
bumpy soft grass parallel to Lewis Center Road. Down a little incline and over a wooden jump ramp (
Sweet jumps) covering some large boulders, then a long hateful climb up soft bumpy grass into a hard right over another wooden bridge, up a steep mountain bike like climb and ou
t onto the grass for a series of twists, turns, off-camber bits then onto different section of the limestone path. Some more grass, back into the twists, turns, off camber bumpy stuff, then a hard left turn with a double set of barriers. The grass after the barriers, could have been quicksand, it sucked, getting back on, I think I tried every gear to see what worked and what didn't after those dang barriers - it just hurt. A grassy dip and some more soft life sucking grass downhill and back to the start.
Two guys from cleveland were off the front fairly quickly and might re-think their sandbagging in the "B's", but Herman, Claus, Gardner and TJ from BioWheels all were within reach at various points. I just couldn't close the gap. I really enjoyed my two other teammates, Mike and Tim rolling with me in back and us slaying several other riders one at a time. Eventually, Mike cracked and Tim started to crack with about 3 to go. I was eyeing Biowheels-TJ and trying in the hardest of sections to put in hard digs and make up the gap. My ever so present, goal of no brakes each race, certainly came into play on this course. I passed one or two folks that in years past I have never beaten - great motivation. In the twisty, off camber bits, I was able to gap many and pick better faster lines with no brakes and distance myself. In the bell lap, my team mate Tim came out of nowhere and was all of a sudden sitting on my wheel, I think waiting to pounce. I was able to look back and see Joe H., Dave G and a few others very close. I put in all out efforts in 4 sections and got some distance before the barriers, looked back and Tim was just off a bit. I continued to go hard just before the finish line. I think he could have taken me though:)
I am not sure how they scored the "B" group with the masters in or out. I Took 10th Place, just behind TJ, Gardner and Claus. The pic to the left
< shows how close I was to catching Gardner and TJ. Next time!
Kudo's to my team mates for a great race, Kurtis, Daiska, Tim, Ryan, Mike and Mark B for beating some fast guys in his "A" race.
Props to my buddy Joel for his 2nd Place in the "C's" he's been working hard this season and it was good to see all his hard work paying off.
The fitness is coming around. Good things ahead
this weekend at the UCI Cincy Races. It's too bad Shannon and Bonney won't come race with me in the "B's". I have Gers, Chewning and Tinsler (with his downgrade to 3's) to battle, which should keep me busy enough for three days.
Smith Farms Highlight
This venue was on part of the Central Ohio Parks, Three Creeks. It was a great venue and had some nice features for a cross race. There is much more here to use I think but the area around the barn and storage area served us well, with some really nice terain. I had a decent start sitting with the front of the fast guy ten "B" field. 
then a hard left up left to an off camber hill. There was a nice dip on the inside of the off camber section, which proved to be not the line to take even though it appeared to be the fastest line, it wasn't - tricky. Once up the little hill, we were on an old double-track tractor road for a short bit, then a hard left onto the pavement, where you could have rolled a tire. Off the pavement and back onto the grass with one of my favorite spiral cross designs of the year. (I can do really well in this type of stuff, looking around and through these type of cross things, where others sometimes can't look ahead of their front tire) 
After the spiral we headed over to the main road near the course and had a barrier with a super steep run up and then a quick steep downhill. We had a short recovery section downhill still parallel to the road then into some off camber turns up and down a hills side near our parking. There was also a really cool dip with an uphill into a right turn with a tight sweep around the barn in the photo. Sitting in the line of fast 10, I knew if I could just hang on to the group, someone might make a mistake or slowdown, sure enough I hung on, slowly warmed up and started to feel really 
great. My legs had tons of power and gas and I was running the double barriers and single up hill barriers really well. I picked off Larry P, when he went down in a slipery corner and went from 8th to 6th when a few others cracked with 3 laps to go. Tim, Glen, Michael O. and local B racer and ("i haven't been riding, really") sandbagger Brandon all were remaining in front of me. I chased and chased Tim till I finally got him on the tractor road, Glen was just in front of him with 1 lap to go.
pt pushing and pushing. Once I passed him, Tim came back around on Glen's wheel and they both worked to try to close the gap to me, but I managed to hold them off in the last of the twisty bits before the finish line. 
