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The Beater of the pack

The 2007 Chicago Cyclocross Cup is underway, and it's elbow to elbow this year. They say that 'cross is the fastest growing cycling sport, and I'm starting to believe it. In the 2005 season, I finished in the middle of the singlespeed pack, which usually topped off at 7-10. Back then they started us behind 20-30 B racers, for a total of 35-40 on the course at any given time. This year's Jackson Park race had 94 people in the Masters' heats and 70 people in Cat 4! Consider that the entire course was about a mile and a half (with 24 corners!) and it doesn't take much to figure out that it was a traffic jam wire to wire.

Actually, most of the traffic was on lap one, which is where you want it. Unfortunately, most of it was also *ahead* of me which is not where I wanted it. In this case, let's discuss the post-mortem before the race itself:

What I learned in CX 2007 Race 1:

1. Test your bike more than 45 minutes before the season starts
2. Tattoo "low pressure, dipshit" on your forearm after the season, so you remember next year
3. The first lap of the race is not the time to re-learn your off-road skills
4. It's fun to build up a bike using ONLY the pile of parts you've collected in the basement, but sometimes it's more fun to bite the bullet and purchase tires that work
5. The USCF official informed me that sleeves are now required, so #23 will have to retire for now

To fill in the gaps, I built and lightly tested my bike last weekend...on asphalt. In my first practice lap, I popped my chain, but that was kind of a relief, because I knew I had a weak (hammer-fixed on the side of the road) link, but I couldn't spot it the weekend before. Problem solved...but even less time to pre-ride...

Had I done so, I would have noticed that my tires were both a literal and figurative pain in the arse pumped up as hard as they were. I considered pulling over mid-race to bleed them, but I figure I'd lose time and possibly bleed them too much. Plus I was ripping mad air over one barrier, and I thought I'd pinch flat coming down if they were too soft. So, I spent an inordinate amount of energy jittering my bike over corduroy ripples of lumpy grass.

One thing I did find out in my 7 minute pre-race tour was that my back tires looked like they had a couple of knobs left on them here and there, but simply THINKING about using the brakes caused my rear end to slide out (though this would have been better if I had them at proper pressure). I never hit the dirt over this, but I had a couple spectacular swingouts. If I had a blind date with confidence, she ditched me standing at the door with flowers. In particular, I was afraid a hard crash would jeopardize me hitting my target marathon time in 2 weeks (I need all the help I can get getting there).

What all this meant was that, at the horn, I would have spiked my heart rate to get out of the crowd, then found a rhythm and watched to pick off riders at the barriers or semi-straights. However, my best efforts at the gate were spent riding up and down a thousand little micro-hills that would have been negligible had I just ran at 35-40 PSI. Plus, there was a huge crowd, and I knew that laying the bike down in a hairpin (did I mention there were 24 of them?) would have made me a speed bump to the balance of riders behind me.

So I did the unthinkable...I laid back and let a ton of people pass, then took every corner wide and slow, so even the chumps could out-corner me on the inside...If I were to go down, at least nobody would be fool enough to have my line and ride over me.

With all that said, you'd think I'd have been dead last, but the first lap or two took the place of what most people consider "pre-season tune-up" rides. With so many racers, a line was laid down in the corners pretty quickly, and I was able to nail most of them without touching the brakes. Also, my marathon training paid off a bit, as many people were using the barrier & runups to recover. I realized pretty quickly that I could virtually explode up and over them, often passing one or two people, or at least not losing ground to any. I still got hammered by lapping leaders, but at least they made it easy to spot who was easy prey to pass. Following guys like that teaches you something about yourself; you go all-out to hold their line, but after 30 seconds, you slip up or ease up or flat out screw up and you're off their wheel, and you ain't getting it back unless they slip up or ease up or screw up...and they don't seem to do that.

The other highlight for me was the far end of the course. There were a couple of easy curves, a semi-straightaway that was handy for passing, then a few blind, but not so hard turns. After the last one, there was a barrier that was totally bunny-hoppable if you still had some speed. I aired it out every time but once (traffic) and was able to pass 1-4 people almost every time. At one point, a passing leader called out on my right, and the two of us sky-ed out elbow to elbow. Praise jebus I didn't take him out, and I wish somebody had flick'r-ed that. Unfortunately the series director thinks bunny-hopping barriers is "un-cross" and he adjusted the course to prevent it after our race. Also, my marathon training paid off well in the later laps, as I was pretty relaxed, except for the skin scalped off my hand from riding the hoods on superhard tires. I got a little sloppy, for sure, but on my last lap, I was reeling in guys who were clearly praying for it to be over.

So all in all, I found it only somewhat disappointing that I got 22nd of 40 (Masters' 30+). The full results aren't posted yet (and may never be, as the officials don't seem to want to fully sort such crowded fields). Another guy who beat me by a spot in almost every race in 2005 thinks I beat him by 8-10 places. He went on to start in the back of 70+ riders in the Cat 4 race and finish 11th, so maybe next time I'll pull a double and see how I stack up in Cat 4. The marathon will be over by then, so hopefully I can be a little more aggressive and still have some condition.

And I'll be sure to let some of the air out my tires first.