what 'PRO' means to me

yes, I've actually seen people
riding around before like this
(sans frame number, of course)

This week a Twitter post caught my eye.  mrjoestaples: "Let me tell you how PRO @stevencxracer is.... He is willing to do boring rides when it's the right thing to do..."  With this I began thinking back to what the definition of PRO means to me.

Battle at Barlow. I finally finished this one

Battle at Barlow.  A course marked by it's brutal railroad tie run up, long off-camber section and bumpy terrain. The past two years this course wasn't so kind to me.  In 2009 this was my very first cross race; I broke my chain after 1.5 laps.  Last year the course was almost impossible to ride due to the amount and consistency of mud; I broke a derailleur.  This year I wasn't even planning on going anywhere near this course but plans changed on Thursday and there I was, registered for this race yet again.

Rapha Focus GP

I was bouncing off the walls after Saturday's race.  At post-race
dinner the waitress made the mistake of giving me crayons...

I woke up Sunday morning and thought one thing, "ouch."  I knew Starcrossed was going to be a tough race and I knew that doing back-to-back races isn't easy but somehow I never imagined that I would be quite this sore.  I blame it on the sand.  And Belgians.

Starcrossed: Damn, Belgians are fast.

Here’s what I learned today:  if you eat Belgian waffles every morning you can make a bike go really fast.  Heck, even ex-dopers can’t keep up with you.

But seriously though, today’s race was awesome.  The course was bone-dry and super-fast; lots of bends and twisty-turnys but an all-around awesome course.  That said, I’m definitely not a fan of sand.  This course contained two sand sections, one which was mostly ridable and one that was unridable, unless you eat Belgian waffles every day. 

In keeping with my typical clusterf*** luck I dropped my bike on the drive-side, slightly bending the derailleur hanger.  Well that wasn’t part of the plan.  With my shifting slightly off my warmup went all according to plan but as soon as I put my rear wheel on and did a few openers I knew something was up.  Damn, broken spoke and 10 minutes to staging.  I was torn between riding the carbon tubular with a broken spoke or risk running a clincher with the same tread.  I opted for the clincher.  Good choice.

Start position 46 out of 60ish.  A small but relatively stacked field.  Looking around I recognized a lot of people near the front and not a whole lot around me.  That means one thing:  this is going to be one fast race.  Bam, gun goes off and we’re off.  As I enter the first corner and I look over to see that the leaders already have 15 seconds on me.  Holy crap, it’s been 100m and they’re really that far ahead?  Enter survival mode.  Because of my total lack of twitchy muscles at the moment I switched the diesel into overdrive and went after anyone I could see.  I settled into my rhythm and slowly picked people off.  I had trouble riding the sand section and lost a few seconds every lap but gained it back in other sections.  I wound up getting pulled with two laps to go because some waffle-eating fast dude was burning rubber behind me.  I really wanted one more lap but I’m pretty happy with my performance today.  I rode within myself and despite the equipment hiccup and poor start position I managed to ride my best race of the season.  No idea on placing but I’ll update it when I know.  It just started pouring so I’m sure whatever the course is tomorrow it’ll be drastically different from what we rode today.

Dust, blood, hay: Pain on the Peak cx

My number of bodily injuries have exponentially increased over the past two weeks.  That can mean only one thing, it's cyclocross season.  I won't go through all the injuries but let's just say I look like either a victim of the Cheese-grater Killer or a 5-year-old who just got done with a summer of climbing (and falling out of) trees.  Suffice to say, I'm getting a little better at cornering.

rawr, hills.
(photo courtesy of Mattew Haughey)

Psycho Cross; first double cx weekend of the year

Back-to-back races, traveling and jamming to obscene music for hours on end while stuck in traffic, traveling to yet another race.  Ahh, the season has begun.

Today was Psycho Cross in Eugene, OR and it was terrifically under attended.  Seeing as this would be the same venue for the OBRA CCX Champs in November I figured it'd be good to at least see the course and get a feel for it.

We had 9 people in our combined field, 3 As and 6 Masters.  Seriously?  This is an awesome venue and so much better than racing on the mountain bike course through the dust bowl that we're going to be at tomorrow.  Immediate race goal: don't let a Master pass me.  We'd start at the same time so I'd have a chance to throw down with the old guys.  And no, I'm not apologizing for the old man comment because I got asked what grade I was in today.  I'm seriously thinking I need to get a fake ID and start passing myself off as a junior racer.  If only.

The whistle blows and judging by the pre-race banter I was expecting an easy rollout.  Nope, race on, I go to kick into the pedal and totally miss, foot hits the ground and there goes the field.  Remembering my lesson from last week I keep my calm and start the battle.  Heck, worst I can get is third place and this is a practice race anyway.  Unfortunately, the two other As get the gap and they're off.

I really should have pre-ridden the course more.  It took me three laps before I eventually nailed down the right lines but I got it.  By then the damage was done and I just had to finish.  One interesting aspect of this race was the heat.  While the course was shaded the 95F heat, dust and open field sections really drained your energy, and moisture from your mouth.  Throwing a bottle cage on was the best decision I'd made.  I watched as I slowly lost about 10 seconds per lap and then made up about 20 seconds per lap for the last three.  Maybe I took it too easy in the middle but I definitely had a good jump in the closing laps.  

Successful day, I wound up third on the day and didn't let any of the old guys me pass me.  I'm kind of disappointed that more people didn't show up, this is an awesome course but I'm pretty psyched to come back in November.

Another night in Eugene, then back to Portland for Pain on the Peak tomorrow.  Great, another race in a dust bowl.

Today I kind of sucked

(photo courtesy of "richtheneighbor")

So, first cross race of the season and I kind of screwed up.  While I wasn't looking for or expecting a spectacular result I wanted to go out, get dirty and have some fun. Well, I definitely got dirty; fun is questionable.