Our last day of 'cross in Ottawa for the year would finish with the second event of the day. After getting ready and heading out onto the course for a warm up and a quick view of the layout, things were looking OK. Expectations were not to high, as the season is winding down for the year, and the legs are fading. While finishing up a warm up lap with Matt S., I noticed that he'd peeled off a moment earlier, and no one else was around! So I was quickly on my way over to the starting queue hoping not to have completely missed it. Everyone was lined up and pretty much ready to go, Bob was kind enough to hold us for 30seconds extra while I peeled off a warm-up layer.
So were off like a rock, not the best start position, but again, not too worried about it. There was nearly a mishap however, as I could feel handlebars bumping my leg in the bunch, fortunately no incidents. as we got around the first few corners, I was able to work my way up to a chase group of four or five of us, with 7-8 riders off the front. Matt, myself and a couple of others would spend the next few laps chasing around. Nothing terribly eventful happened until (I think) the third lap, on a rough decent I snapped a spoke in my front wheel. Fortunately it happend just before the run-up, and the pit was the top. So on the run-up, I shouldered the bike, took the front wheel off (all while running) tossed the wheel off course and kept on running to the pits. Once I got to the top, I could pit and grab my spare wheel. From there it was head down and try and chase back on to the small group I had been riding with. There was lots of cheering on the run-up and decent, so it was extra motivation to start off the chase.
It would take about a lap for me to come up, and our small chase group then somewhat came back together, we lost one, picked up another, it pretty much balanced out. Marc L. had fallen off one of the lead groups, he, Marcel and I would finish off the second half of the race together. I was riding a bit sloppy for a fair amount of the race, but as I was tiring late in the race, it was extra motivation to focus on riding smooth, and attempt to keep lap times consistent.
Coming into the final lap Marcel rolled a tubular, casualties were really starting to add up, he would pop it back on and finish off, surprisingly not very far behind Marc and I. The final lap the two of us would kind of cat and mouse it, trying to keep the pace up, but no real attacks, which meant it would come down to a sprint, both of us have a decent sprint, and it was uphill, so it would come down the line. At the line it was me by half a bike, thumbs up!
A great race, well done with the course, Mooney's Bay (both times) this year has been tops, a nice change!
Next weekend we are off to Warwick, Rhode Island for the Verge Series finals, the NBX GP, looking forward to it, a good weekend of racing in the US is always fun. I'll try my hand in the Pro/Elite race, should be a fun one.
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