PsychoCross

At least that's what it looked like when we got there. Sunday was the Michigan State Cyclocross Championships at Waterford Hills. We had been getting snow all week, including quite a bit on Saturday, plus the temperatures weren't supposed to get out of the teens.

I left the house around 7am and drove to Romeo to meet up with Curt. When we were loading my stuff into his car I thought "its not that bad out". Once we got to Waterford I ate my words. Stepping out of the car I realized there must have been something blocking the wind at Curt's place and there was nothing to help us at the race course. It was bitter cold, plus there was easily 6+ inches of snow with drifts much deeper.

I wasn't really sure what to expect. Based on crashes at my last couple races I put some snow/mud specific tires on the bike so I hoped that would make a difference but I didn't really know what to expect. So we got registered, then changed into basically every piece of riding clothes I brought, then headed out to pre-ride the course. At first it was pretty slow going, trudging through some pretty deep snow on the course. Then I look up and here comes Robert (the race promoter) on his 4-wheeler with a plow and he is actually plowing the race course. That's not something I ever expected to see. But it worked great as it was way easier to ride where he plowed. The new tires felt pretty good too.

Before long it was time to line up so we headed to the start. For some reason they decided to start all the men in one big group instead of splitting us into two. I sat on the back and let the faster guys move up front. That ended up making the first lap really slow as it constantly bottlenecked and at times I was almost track standing. As we raced I got more and more comfortable with the tires and pushed their limits. I managed to stay upright the whole race and only had to run one hill, just because the riders in front of me stopped and didn't get out of the way.

Curt and I ended up riding the whole race together. This was only his second race of the year, coming back from a knee injury, but he rode well. I could tell he still had a lot of his technical skills with him as he would pull ahead on me in the tight stuff, but I would pull him back in on the flats. We finished towards the back of the pack, but it was a fun race in the snow.

The rest of the TSB CX crew was out too, including Joe, who hasn't been around much lately. Unfortunately he flatted so he didn't finish, but it was good to see him anyways. John did his usual domination, taking home like a dozen awards on the day (I didn't think you could win that much from one event). Lee was the big surprise of the day, storming the old guy field with his mountain bike and grabbing 2nd place and Ben finished mid pack.

Its weird, racing is over for the year, but I really want to keep cross racing. I question while I do before and during the races, but then after I want to do another one. Time to start training for next year though. I'm hoping to do some more endurance stuff next summer so I better start getting those base miles in.