Cross season is finally here. I drove to central Michigan to put my new Blue cross bike to the test against some of the top local racers in the area. The bike feels fast, my fitness is pretty good and my cross skills are pretty good for this early in the season.
The course had a nice layout that required a well rounded cyclocross skill set. 3 dismounts per lap, a hill run, a stair run, and lots of difficult turns kept the course challenge all the way around. To top it all off, there was a rock and roll band playing in the middle of the course.
I rode steadily the whole race and ended up in 3rd. Within the first lap the top 2 guys put a 15 - 20 second gap on me and they held that same gap for the whole race. Little things like falling on an uphill switchback and dropping my chain twice prevented me from ever pulling closer. I need to work on starting more aggresively and taking practice laps at race speed. Given equal fitness, that will prevent the gap from opening up in the first place.
I'm happy with 3rd though, I took home $25 and and Alpha Q hat and it got me some upgrade points so I'm half way to getting the upgrade to cat 2.
The rest of the weekend was pretty good too. The day before the race I rode at Cannonsburg ski resort to work on my climbing, after the race i ran about 8 miles on the Ithaca jailbird trail, and on the drive home I stopped at Ft. Custer to get a little more mountain biking in.
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