This weekend was rounds 9 and 10 of the Verge series at Look Park in Northampton, MA. Coming off a 4th place finish in a small local race the week before, I was now back in a field of 85 racers with every top guy within 400 miles ready to go at it. Absolutely perfect weather for cross.
Day 1: Having learned a lesson from last week, I embrocated without torching my nuts. Got to Look Park early and had a really good warmup. I was feeling like I might be able to hang with a couple of guys that have been finishing a minute or two ahead of me today. In particular, I was targeting Brant Hornberger from the Bikereg team and John Meerse from the OA team. Two really strong guys who have been racing for years. Biggest problem with marking guys like that is they get a callup at the beginning of the race and get to stage in the first few rows based on points they've won in previous races. I take that back, the biggest problem with marking guys like that is that they're stronger and better than me.. The second biggest problem is that they also get a head start via the callup. Verge series points are awarded each race to the top 25. In a bit of bad luck a couple weeks ago in the pigpen at Downeast cross in Maine, I came across the finish line with part of my number obscured by mud. So my 23rd place finish that should have netted me 3 points (my first of the season) got credited to Matt Theodore's number who, as it turns out, didn't even race that day. My efforts to get the points credited to me have been futile since I didn't hang around after the mudfest waiting to see the results and therefore missed the protest period. The reason this is such a bummer is because those 3 points would have been enough to get me a call-up in staging which means I would have been able to start in the 4th row, rather than the 7th row that I ended up in. Start position is huge at Northampton because of the layout of the course, actually start position is always huge.. Oh well. Enough whining. On to the race......
Jonny, Kevin, Kurt and Roger battling it out at the front.
As the 4 or 5 of you that have been reading my blog know, my starts have been awful this year. It seems that I become a spastic at the start and never seem to be able to get my foot clipped in cleanly on the sprint start. By the time I get clipped in I'm always bringing up the rear of the field and then have to work even harder chasing for 45 minutes trying to gain position.. But today was going to be different. I've been working really hard on my starting technique.. Well, not actually on the bike because I really didn't have time this week. But I've been thinking really hard about it and I'm pretty sure I had dreams on three consecutive nights this week where I was doing pretty good on my starts. So the whistle blows and guess what... I bollixed my start. So much for hoping I'd get better without actually spending time on it. Who knew? So with about 75 out of the 81 starters in front of me I set about trying to gain position. Marking Brant and John was out the window as they undoubtedly had more than a minute on me less than 5 minutes into the race with the gap increasing as I fought to get by everybody in front of me. I was cranking along passing people wherever I could and if I had to guess, I'd say I got ahead of about 25 or 30 of them. Time for the shit to hit the fan. The course had two really steep uphill sections in it.. One was a pure run-up that couldn't be ridden. The other one could be ridden if you had the right line, enough momentum, and enough power.. The runup was pretty nasty. Super steep and all chopped up with rocks and roots. On one lap I was going up the run-up (I say "going up" because "running up" would be giving myself too much credit) with my bike shouldered and Richard Fries, one of the top race announcers you'll ever have at a race, was stationed on the run-up doing his commentary. I went by him so slow that we could have had a chat about where we'd be spending the holidays. Huge momentum killer for me. The other steep section I was able to ride except for a couple times when one of the other racers got in my way (coincidentally it was the same guy both times). The first time, I had enough power to get to the top of the hill but apparently the guy in front of me didn't. At the very top he came to a standstill. He got a little frustrated as I tried to maneuver my way around him and he threw a shoulder/elbow into me that sent me into a stake. Didn't see that coming.. I t-boned the stake and endo'd straight over the handlebars with my bike doing a dramatic wheel over wheel flip. There were a few drunk guys partying there that really enjoyed the crash and my creative cursing. I picked the bike up, and headed off to catch the prick who just crashed me out as the brew crew who just witnessed it screamed "Go pass him!".. Uhh, no shit.
Random overdressed guy leaning against a tree. It's possible
they may have been filming the next Tarantino movie.
I had lost a bunch of time and some turf was caught in my gears from the crash so my chain was skipping all over the place. It took the better part of a lap for the stuff to work it's way out and for me to get my shifting back again.. I spent a couple laps alone trying to work my way back up in the field. Twice I came past a point in the course where some guy would say "C'mon Alan! Go!" This made me go faster because I figured some guy named Alan was on my wheel. The second time around when he said it again I tried to speed up again to drop Alan and then I looked over my shoulder to see who this Alan jerk is that's been sucking my wheel for two laps and noticed I was alone. Apparently I was Alan.. Once again I came to that same hill that I crashed on earlier and as it turned out I was in a position to pass the same guy. I came up the hill right behind him and again he stalled out at the top. This time I had picked a different line to get around him, but he heard me coming (undoubtedly due to my asthmatic grunting) and swerved into me bringing me to a stop. I hopped off the bike, called him something that rhymes with pucking gashole and ran up over the top of the hill trying to catch him again. Shortly thereafter, I was coming into a fast section of the course where you go up and over a set of train tracks. I was hammering as hard as I could to catch racers ahead of me and I hit the tracks with a ton of speed which gave me some serious air. I came down hard with my hands on the brake hoods and the force dropped my handlebars by at least 2 inches. This sucked big time. Now I was way stretched out and leaning in a very awkward way over my bike which put my lower back in a ton of pain as I was chasing as hard as possible.
Sand, much like mud, continues to kick my ass and cost me valuable time.
On the last lap I absolutely crushed myself catching and passing the guy who sent me into the stake. I also caught and passed a couple others and had two more right in front of me, but nothing left in the tank to sprint past them as I came across the finish line 46th for the day.. Considering the bad start, endo over the handlebars, bobbles on rideups and sandpits, plus the mechanical issues I guess it could have been worse, but I was very dissapointed nonetheless.
On my way to my buddy Meiza's for the night in Springfield I popped in Exile on Main St by the Stones and the race became a distant memory. It occurred to me how much the music today pales in comparison to anything the Stones did in the early 70's. You might say, "wait a minute, that's just your musical taste.", but you'd be wrong. Liking blue better than green is a matter of taste. Don't confuse your inability to recognize genius with a perceived lack of taste on my part. Genius is genius, and what the Stones put out from 69-72, culminating with Exile on Main St., was absolute genius that nobody before or since has been able to touch. But I digress....
Best album ever! I refuse to argue this.
Day 2: What a gorgeous day. Another mishap free embrocation application and I was starting to feel like my luck was changing. Today would be the day I would nail my start. I had a good warmup on the course, which had changed quite a bit from Saturday and was going to be fast and, as always, fun. The steep ride-up from the day before was now a ride-down followed immediately by a jump over train tracks at about 25mph. There would be some serious air today. After my warmup I practiced about 50 starts. Just easy starts getting clipped in. I also tried a new position on the bike for the start. I was hitting it cleanly about 80% of the time. Today was going to be a killer start for me. I also had a very aggressive attitude after getting knocked around yesterday. If there was going to be any bumping, I was going to be ready for it.
See me in the blue? Of course not, I'm 7 rows back!
The whistle sounded and I nailed my start. I passed at least 2 rows of racers and came into the first turn in the middle of the pack. Perfect! Couldn't have asked for a better start from the 7th row staging position I had. My marks of the day were going to be either of the Bikereg guys, Steve and Brant, or Dan Coady. All guys that always finish ahead of me by anywhere from about 45 seconds to 2:00 minutes.. And they were all in my sights. This was good. No, this was great! I was going to crush it today. I was riding beyond myself, my heart was exploding, my back and legs were screaming. I couldn't get nearly enough air into my lungs to support the effort. At one point I came down the steep hill, without slowing I hit the tracks and went soaring into the air, landed and flew into a wide sweeping 180.. Too fast. Both wheels went into a full slide as I tried to hold the bike upright completely expecting the tires to come rolling off the rim. But they held (thanks to my expert glue job) and I came out of the turn intact at full speed to the wild cheers of the massive crowd. I was at full gas bridging gaps from one group to the next, again and again until i was in a group with Coady. It seemed each of us took our turns attacking, repeatedly trying to shake one another. On the last lap I left it all on the course. Everybody was at their limit and I attacked, dropping the group I was in except for one rider.
My final attack, dropping all but 1...
I was inside out and it was excruciating. I bridged up to a lone rider who had about 50 yards on us when I first attacked. The guy that I had brought with me was still on my wheel and he stayed on to the sprint finish where he slingshotted out of my draft in the last 50m to take 35th.. I ended the day in 36th place, a mere 39 seconds out of the points. A very solid and satisfying effort. My best result in a large and very strong Verge field. In similar races earlier in the year I've been in the 60's, 50's, more recently in the 40's, and now I've worked my way into the 30's. I finally feel like I'm competitive and I'm only going to get stronger. Just a few more weeks of this season, but the future is looking very bright for upcoming seasons now that I have my focus, am getting some much needed experience, and I'm gaining confidence every week.
Off to Plymouth....
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