Sunday, October 28, 2007

DCCX - The Sandbaggers Ball

I decided late in the week to register for the DCCX race. My week was pretty lazy as far a training and I wanted to go have good time on the 'cross bike so this seemed like a low key event within the MABRA community although not part of the series. To top it off, it had rained most of the week and the conditions for a good 'cross race were ripe. It was also nice only traveling 45 minutes to a race.

On my warm-up lap I was surprised at how dry the course was, only one soggy section in the lower area around the pit, so much for a good old fashioned mudder, a la EVO/Guys from last year.
As I returned to the car I run into Morgan who was frantic about his bike not shifting. I tried to help him out but without tools and a stand and more time, I couldn't help him. My advise was to find a bike to borrow, he returned with HvT's pit bike which was a bit small for him. He also informed me Russ Langley was in the B race, WTF? I'm sorry, I don't mind getting beat by people I know are a bit more fit than I am, but when a guy who's a Cat 1 and has held a Pro license and ridden on a US Continental Pro team shows up to an event like the DCCX and races in the B field, I have to cry SANDBAGGER. The MAC, not so because I know he would have been taken to school on a more technical course with a lot stiffer competition.

Steve Fife from ETS gave it a good go at staying with him but that lasted until the long paved/gravel section on the first lap. From then on I wanted to vomit every time I heard the announcer call out Russel the Muscle.





At the start line I figured I needed all the good karma I could find so as Morgan was still flipping out over not fitting HvT's bike, I told him to go get my pit bike after he sized up my A bike and felt it was good fit.

I managed a good start even from 4 rows back working my way in to the top 15 and found myself in a large chase group being lead by Bernie who was riding really strong and took a podium spot.

On the second lap our chase group was still together, I was on Sam O'Keefe's wheel at the back of the train. Riding strong in his first B race, he started to let a gap open and I decided I needed to get around him. Unfortunately I picked a bad section to go and dumped it in a rough, bumpy section. The worst part was my remount, after gathering myself off the ground, I manage to propel my bike forward as I'm remounting and miss my saddle, landing on my rear wheel. Not a good feeling. I went from top 10-12 to some near the 20's. Later that lap on the paved section I was trying to identify the crunching, grinding sound of carbon coming from one of my wheels when I missed the curve to the left and t-boned the guy on my right who was making the turn, fortunately I didn't take him down, but I rolled to a stop and watched several more spots go by me.

I dug it out the rest of the race, rode clean lines, dropped wheelsuckers who didn't want to stick their nose into the wind and fought my way back to a respectable 9th. Left a bit more flesh and blood out on the course again this weekend.

The B bike seeing some action.Enjoying a nice, short trip home, Gina and I grabbed some food from Frisco Burrito and relaxed to a nice whooping of the Redskins at the hands of the Patriots. A bit bored of that after the first half, we decided to break into the baby stuff and start putting things together. We started with the stroller which turned out to be broken so we moved on to the bouncy, swingy thing. Boulder is in love with this, especially the mobile animals.
7 more weeks, please don't come early.

2 comments:

Chris said...

I don't throw around the 'sandbagger' term lightly, but I'd say that Russ Langley poaching a cat 3/4 local race qualifies.

My Husband Rules said...

Good luck with the 7 more weeks of pregnancy thing! We lucked out. The nursery didn't get put together until week 36, and the car seats went into the car at week 38. He showed up at week 39.5. So way to be proactive!

Cheryl