Friday morning we packed up the family and headed south for the final weekend of racing for the year. This time a return to Warwick Rhode Island for the NBX GP. The drive was pretty good, and we arrived in the evening, in time for dinner.
Saturday morning we awoke to another change in the weather forecast, now that being said, we've enjoyed one of the nicest seasons (weather wise) of cyclocross, probably in the history of the world, so foul weather was due, and judging by the rain that was coming down, overdue...
So we were expecting a few light showers late in the day, it would be full on rain all day long, and top it off with strong wind, and temps around 4-5 Celsius. We hit up target on the way to the race, Kelly loves that store, and we had time to kill. Post shopping its off to the races.
Quick trip down to registration netted me unlucky number 13 and hopes for a good starting position. However the math don't always add up, and sometimes number lie.
The start grid was in the lower parking lot, just off the beach. The wind was whipping off the water, and we were looking at light showers at this point. Call ups began, and no luck stuck me on the back row.. crud.. As a consolation prize, I was the first one called to the back row, so that has to stand for something?
There were 32 starters in the Elite field, I would be happy with a top 20, top half would be elation.
We had a clean start, weaving through the parking lot, I was able to bump and jam my way up a few spots into mid pack by the first run-up. From there all progress was quickly halted. I first got caught behind a slip up on a corner turned into a forced bottle neck, cleared. My own slip on a root, forced touch and restart, and the grand palooka, involving a rider slipping out directly in front, sending my front wheel into his back (his actual back, not back other), and me going over the top, he was ok, I heard him laugh, funnily enough, bikes were a bit tangled but we both got up and continued, only by this point we were probably in the bottom two, and we are not even halfway through lap one!
The chase would begin, and goals at this point were simply to survive, and try to make up a bit of ground. The next couple of laps I would start to get into a rhythm and regain a few spots. By mid race everything was blurring in, nearly literally, the wind was fierce off the water, hands, toes, and most everything else were wet, cold, and numb, fortunately the course was fairly flowing, and not much braking was needed, I say fortunately, cause my hands weren't working well. I really wanted to ride the beach, but no one else was either, ah well.
The last couple of laps were coming as relief, it was getting tough by this point to just hang on. I did however manage to catch and pass one more rider on the final lap, and nearly had a second guy, who would evade me by about 5 seconds, but 20th would be the official result, not bad for the first week of December in an Elite race. Dan Timmerman ran away with the win.
As I write this its now snowing, but supposed to clear over night... we'll see about that. Should be sunny and 4 degrees for the Sunday race.. we shall see how that turns out!
No comments:
Post a Comment