RockBurn CX 08'

Well, sometimes the hand of God is talking to you, and you don't listen. I went to the race, after doing the DCCX with a placing I could live with. I wanted to do the race mostly to ride the course--it seemed that it would be a fun one to race on. Mark, and I got off to a bumpy start by going the wrong way up 270. We recovered from that error, but Mark could not race the 55+ class since he got there 23 minutes before the start, which was less then the 30 minutes they required. Mark did get his registration moved to the CAT 3/4 race, so he was able to race at least.

I prerode the course, and by the time I got back the people were all lined up. Usually I don't care if I am in the back of the pack; I can start ok. Well this was the first race, where the start was very important. JJ was there and I thought he would be a good person to race, so I was looking forward to that little private battle. I started out not as fast as I'd like; kinda felt myself not really riding on top of my gear. Well, around half way through the lap, I was catching up to JJ and Pooch and I here a PING! I know what that is...a broken spoke. A lot of times when a spoke breaks not too big of an issue, but with these wheels they seem to go really out of true! So, within a couple of pedal strokes, I hear the tire rubbing the frame. So I had to get off the bike and move the wheel in the dropout. I do that, and then I am off again. I feel like I am really at the back of the pack now. Well, the rest of the race I go around thinking I will start to catch people, but it isn't happening. I got to the point that it was embarrassing; I mean, I beat some of these guys last week and now I couldn't ride for S&%t. So as they say one more to go, I just come in and took my first DNF in a cross race. The only up side was that once I started coasting I realized that my rim was so out of true that the wheel would not move unless you put considerable force on it. So that kinda explains why I felt so slow, but maybe not.

There were some good rides out there. Still impressed with Matt Parse--he is riding really well. Ryan Bannon looked good until he cramped up. JJ rode a good race; maybe I will get to race him soon. Matty had a good result considering he was getting over a cold.

The course was great, I would only change a couple of things, like maybe making one or two turns not as curvy and the prologue go up the big hill that we come down, which would give people who can crush it a space to move up while others would get in their natural position. This was a course that I really liked even though it is not the fastest kind of course for me. Tacchino Cross I will either be there racing or taking pics and filming.

The photos from the CAT 3/4 race were done by Schiek more at http://www.flickr.com/photos/picturesoflily/

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