Lindsay and I went down Friday afternoon to get a little bit of riding in on the course before Saturday. Other than a few minor things, I immediately liked the course a lot. It had several different features that tested a rider's skill set; that, in my opinion, is a cyclocross course.
We raced considerably earlier than I have grown accustomed to. Plus USGP runs a tight ship with little (read: no) time between earlier races, so I had no time pre-ride the course (which was okay Saturday because I had ridden Friday aft noon), but I also left myself little time for a decent warm up. Despite all that, I had an okay race Saturday starting 34th and finishing 10th.The rest of the day was spent spectating and hanging out w/ friends. Good times.
Sunday the course was similar, but had a few changes. Again, I didn't have time to pre-ride but I was able to note the deep-ass mud pit (pictured a few posts ago) was back in the course. Upon noticing this I booked it into the pit just prior to my race to get the wheels off of my pit bike and put them on my race bike since the pit bike wheels had my mud tires on them. This slop-pit was bad enough that on an otherwise dry course, a mud tire wasn't a bad choice. But then it turns out that the course was re-routed around said pit right before our race. Apparently (from what I heard) the UCI saw the Cat3/4 women coming through the start/finish covered in mud and were asking each other "where is all this mud coming from," went out to check the course, saw the mud pit and said "there's no reason reason for a mud pit on an otherwise dry course" and took it out. I was glad to not have to deal w/ the pit, but I was now on a slower tire than I wanted to be. Oh well, I had a worse race, being caught in more traffic and feeling kind of "flat" anyway. I started 36th and finished 18th.
As with Saturday, then rest of the day, post hotel checkout, etc, was spent watching the rest of the races and hanging out w/ friends. Most of Saturday I was watching from the front "woods" section of the course while my posse was at the back "sand" section of the course. I guess at some point of another the UCI came to them and told them they were being too rowdy and to stop offering hand-ups to the racers (hand-ups consisting of beer, cookies, waffles, etc).
Well Sunday I spent most of the day w/ my posse and things w/out the consumable hand-ups got interesting as you can see below:
As it turns out the UCI also frowns upon holding blow-up dolls on the course and "we" were shut down two days in a row.Whatever, it was a super fun weekend with great fall weather and mediocre racing.
The end if the OVCX is upon us and it's kind of weird. There are just two races left in the series, but there is an Indiana (ICX) series that still has, like, 56 races or something. I have decided to do the Master's World Championships because it is in Louisville and is the first time it's been outside of Europe, so I may need some of the ICX races to keep my "race legs." I haven't really thought beyond the end of the OVCX yet so as it approaches I need to plan another month or so of training and racing.
I think I'll get through the gluttony of Thanksgiving first though.
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