Cyclocross has taken a little bit of a back seat to Mountain Bikes this year, as I'm really trying to have a break through season and need to focus on the training more. But I'm still getting out and racing some CX. I live in the middle of 2 series and only a few hours from a couple more. So there are a lot of races to choose from. I've got the Inland Northwest series, very local. I've got the Wild West Series which stretches from northern Idaho and Montana. Then if I want, I can drive to Seattle and Portland areas where there 3 more series, Cross Crusade in Portland, MFG and Cross Revolution in Seattle. I'm taking the early season to stay a little more local. I spent the first weekend up in Sandpoint, ID for the Crosstoberfest. A great course, very technical and challenging, good crowds. A friend and fellow UCI racer was there, Kevin Bradford-Parish. We are usually pretty close in the UCI races, but this he's definitely got a little more of an edge than I do. We had an excellent battle day 1 in Sandpoint, came down to the last couple laps, but he got me, and day 2, I was a little off the pace as I'm just not in the shape to handle day after day.
The next weekend, I was able to stay super local with races in Pullman on Saturday and Moscow Sunday. The race Saturday was held by the Washington State University cycling club, and the course was amazing. There was a lot of elevation changes and technical features really pushed the limits of what I could do and how fast I could do it. This allowed me to get out a big lead quickly and ride my own race. Sunday's race was in Moscow at the local CX practice course, Sky Ranch. It's pretty flat and open so the race was a little more tactical than Saturday. Plus the wind was really blowing and the other rider I was battling Kaler, was very strong making it hard to get away. So I played the tactics a little more, and made a move about halfway through. Once a had a gap established I had a little mechanical trouble, but had enough of a gap I was still able to pull out the win.Following that I took a weekend off to get some good training in. I heard that rolling thunder had good prizes and good competition so I wanted to be in a little better shape.
And the race lived up to all the hype. Saturday's race was held under the lights at 7:30pm and as I warmed up, the crowd grew and grew. I have raced the Pro XCT in Missoula for the past 3 years, and what an amazing event. Missoula sure knows how to put on a race because Rolling Thunder was no different. The course was good and the event had all the festival amenities to get the party going. With Kevin there again, and the crowds pumped and cheering loud, it was going to be an awesome race. Put on top of that, a first lap prime of some cash and a bottle of Wild Turkey, it was go time.
When the gun went off, I wanted to have a good start to get out front going into the first cornering section. I really wanted to push the first lap because I knew that if I could isolate Kevin, I would have plenty of room to ride smooth and technically well to save some energy because I was riding smoother than Kevin. Must be all that trail riding on the CX bike. The lap featured a cornering section, into an open run across a road, and then down through a sand pit. It then had some corners up and down a bank. the first set was ridable, the second was not, and third was also ridable. It then went into a spiral, a ramp and drop over a car, a long bumpy straight, through the brewery with barriers. After a few more corners there was a slamming combo of shorter barriers and then a table top jump into a woop section. And after a couple straights, the lap was done. So I pushed it hard until I got to the spiral, where I eased up a little and things regrouped. Kevin went to the front and started going for it and I hopped on his wheel with Owen Gue the only one who could follow. I was able to make the pass through the indoor barriers and then hopped the outdoor barriers and hit the jump and woops like a mad man to open up a small gap. But Kevin burned a match to close it and tried to take the inside on the final corner before the line to get the prime. He came inside, but had to slow way down so I was able to get on the gas early and sprint past him. So much action just in the first lap.
The next 20-30 minutes were pretty chill as we established a gap and let it slowly grow a little bit. we traded pulls and got the gap comfortable. But by no means were we completely working together, I think we were both trying to figure each others weakness and start to figure out how we were going to win. I figured that if I could just stay with Kevin, I could win by riding the barriers and the jump/woops as I could faster than he could. So all I had to do was stay with him. with about 35 minutes to go, Kevin attacked, I followed, and pulled him back. Then I attacked a few minutes later and got a gap, Kevin held me within a few seconds and eventually pulled me back. He attacked and got a small gap with about 15 minutes to go and I started working to pull it back, but was having trouble. I held the gap within 2-3 seconds for a few laps, but then it started to grow to 5 and 6 seconds. Around then I start getting a little cramp in my calves and just couldn't push it full gas anymore, especially in the running sections. with 2 laps to go I knew it was do or die, so I went full gas, the calves were both cramping bad and it was all I could do to just hold the gap, maybe pull back a second, but at a price. I overshot a corner and hit a post, going over the bars. I had plenty of a gap, and only half a lap to go, so no worries, but I was on my limit. And I was on my limit for almost the whole race. Haven't gone that hard in a long time. Looking forward to having a few more of those battles this year, and hopefully a win too.
Saturday was a little smaller and more for fun. I had a good first few laps, a stretched the pace hard to get a few seconds gap. They took us through a lot of Saturday night's course features backwards. the woops into jump was super difficult to clear and the sand was a little more challenging too. Once I got away I focused on riding as clean and fast as possible, trying to both get in a good workout and push the body on day 2. With a good gap, the crowd was pushing me to ride some sections that were difficult and I tried them, even got the up and down banking 2 times.
The rest of the season has me focused on the UCI race in Tacoma this coming November 14th and 15th, as well as starting to look towards 2016 MTBs. I'm also going to hit up the rest of the INWCX and Wild West CX series to see if I can place overall in both.
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