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A Tale of Two CX Races

Sunday saw my sister and I both doing a little cyclocross racing, though in very different conditions. Kristen raced with the C Women at JingleCross Rock, which also happened to be a UCI C2 race in Iowa City. Meanwhile I got my first taste of racing at Golden Gate Park in the Pilarcitos/Bay Area Super Prestige, which was also race #5 of the NCNCA Cup. Here's a little photo documentary to provide a visual comparison of the two events. Photos of Kristen courtesy of Mom and the ones of me are from Terry.

First, here is the starting line shot:

Note the short sleeves on me and the snowflakes you can see falling in front of Kristen.

Next, a little CX action, with Kristen headed up a run-up while I'm going over some barriers.

Again, nice warm light shining down on GGP while 3" of snow blanketed the Johnson County Fair Grounds.

And finally, a little bit of riding thru some twists and turns.

If you look closely at the background in my photo you'll see some white course tape on the ground. That would be where I broke through it a few laps prior when I didn't see a turn. I clearly had no excuse with the dry tacky dirt under my tires as compared to Kristen's snowfest.

I'm not sure how Kristen actually finished, but considering she had to do most of the race with only two gears in the back because the rest of the cog and deraileur iced over and without being able to click back into her pedals once they got snow/sand/muck-packed, finishing was accomplishment enough.

As for me, I loved the course at Golden Gate Park. Looooved it! It was a blast to race there. Niki B. and I rode together for a few laps - she's so smooth on dirt it was fun to follow her lines. And we got to giggle at the pot smoker on the run-up. The bummer of the day was that Melanie, who has been my main and very tough competition during the NCNCA Cup races this year, got her feet tangled up going through the last set of barriers on the first lap and went down. Terry said she got back up and on the bike but we never saw her again. Hopefully she's okay. I was happy to see that a few of the fans put dollars out for the women's races this time, and I even tried to grab a few on the last lap, but I missed all of them. I need to add "reaching for the beer dollar" to my weekly 'cross skills practice session I guess. I won the race, with Niki coming in second not far back. It was an insanely fun race and a good one for the end of the Turkey weekend.

Iowa State CX Championships

That's right, this is a race report, but no, I was not in Iowa this weekend. Instead, my sister went out to give 'cross racing a try for the first time...and picked the state championship as her first race. Well, maybe she was "strongly encouraged" by her big sister to go find out how much fun 'cross racing is. She tried to tell me that she is going to school full-time in addition to working 12 hour shifts as a nurse's assistant and therefore hasn't been on her bike in a month. I told her that its only a 45 minute race and she doesn't have anything to lose so why not give it a go.

I'd actually forgotten that we'd discussed her doing this race until Saturday afternoon when Dad called me and said they were at the race venue getting ready for Kristen's race...in my head I'm thinking, oh crap! I didn't prep her at all...I mean, Kristen does know how to get herself ready for a race, she road races all the time...but a 'cross race is a little different...so much strategy, so many little details, so much suffering (maybe I'd skip that part)...so dad's on the phone telling me what the course is like and I ask if her tires are pretty soft. He says, no, we pumped them up nice and hard...NOOOO!!! Crap, go let air out now! But it was too late, Kristen was already on the starting line. They started and off she went.

She did pretty well and never killed herself on any turns on her too-hard tires. She felt bad a little bit because she got lapped, but so did I in my first few 'cross races, so no big deal. The bummer is that the field was so small - only 12 women total, all categories!

The post-race phone call was rather entertaining. For this race the officials raced them for 45 minutes, then two laps after that. Kristen, used to road races, sort of thought that meant everyone sort of sits in for 45 minutes and then attacks on the last 2 laps...she was not prepared for the instantaneous crazy pace right off the start. Oops, should have told her about that. And looking at the photo i guess I should have told her to take the water bottle cages off, too...but at least she was sporting a Bella bottle!

This week she'll be getting my old 'cross bike in the mail, so she'll be all ready to race JingleCross over Thanksgiving on a proper 'cross bike.

Overall, she had a blast and is excited to try it again!