It seems a bit early in the season to break out the Michelin Muds and the rubber boots, but today was a pretty perfect day for not much of anything other than a cyclocross race. So I started my second 'cross season off with a tradition I began last year--entering one race prior to the start of the Cross Crusade series.
I like to get a practice run under the belt before subjecting myself to the madness of the Crusades (680 racers at Barlow today vs. the nearly 2000 that will undoubtedly turn out at Alpenrose Dairy next Sunday. Still recovering from a cold I've been nursing ever since last week's 7-hour ride in the rain, I vowed not to over exert myself but to use this as a warmup/practice/trial run for the rest of the season. Well today's performance leaves nowhere to go but up!
Today was the most pathetic performance of my short 'cross career. One big fiasco--beginning with missing my start and rolling through one disaster after another. The start thing--I was lined up on time with all the other ladies, listening carefully to all instructions. But I couldn't quite hear which group was starting first and assumed it was the Master As since they always started first at the Crusades races last year. Well, apparently the Bs went first and they were 100 yards away by the time I realized my mistake.
I took this as a blessing in disguise since it forced me out of the race and I could just ride my bike at a comfortable pace and kinda get the hang of this 'cross thing again.
Did I mention that it was muddy? And not just in places, but the whole course. And racers had been churning it to bits for hours. It was a 1.6-mile loop of slippery, off-camber muckfest. A thick, gooey mud that clung to the rear triangle and the front fork/brake pad area to prevent the tires from rolling. On the back side was a treacherous downhill slip-n-slide leading up to a knee-high barrier and a steep, rooty, run-down followed by a horrendous run-up bolstered by railroad ties spaced way too far apart.
In case you're not familar, cyclocross was started a couple hundred years ago when some drunk Belgian decided he wanted to ride his skinny-tired road bike around some steep, muddy, off-camber, hairpin turns, occasionally getting off to carry the bike over several obstacles. For some reason, modern cyclists have continued the tradition, although installing narrow knobby tires for slightly better traction and wearing colorful spandex skinsuits to distinguish themselves for the spectators.
I flailed around the course like a beginner, unable to pull off a decent remount and stabbing repeatedly at my pedals before finally clipping in. My Michelin Muds served me well, as I could spin through sections that others had to walk or "run" (this amounted to sliding backward twice as far as you went forward, resulting in three times the effort to make progress--I experienced this myself numerous times until I quite trying to run and just walked).
I slipped and nearly fell on the first barrier; I learned my lesson and just walked all the rest. There was a side-sloping fenceline where spectators gathered to heckle and jeer. I had the most success riding high, right next to the fence, but always faltered at some point. I overheard one of the hecklers talking about someone who grabbed onto the fence and used it to stay steady and upright--I tried it and it worked!
Hecklers also shouted instructions, encouragement and insults from one of the offcamber hairpins--one that you approached in an out-of-control downhill direction then had to somehow shift your momentum uphill and around the corner without falling down or sliding into the row of spectators. On the third lap, I thought about dismounting and handing my bike to the loudest heckler and saying, "here, you do it."
But he probably already had.
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