DCCX 2010

Most photos by Jon Janis

As the captain of DCMTB, DCCX is more than just a race for me. It's our team's way to give back to the biking community by putting on the best event that we can. Yet again, I think that we have succeeded, having over 700 racers and shattering the MABRA record of 80 women at our race. Mother nature came through as well (for the fourth year running) with sunny skies and mild temperatures. A big thank you to all the sponsors--Dogfish Head Alehouses (for tasty beer and pourers), Family Bikeshop (Jonathan rocks), Bobby's Pottys (we had to go big this year, with 7 porta-johns that still all became out of order by the end of the day), the Dutch Club (for making great pancakes). Stickyfingers Bakery, and Joe Foley Photography. Special thanks also to the Armed Forces Retirement Home for allowing us to use the beautiful grounds.

Men's Masters ¾

Well, I was worried a little bit going into this race.  I had been working on the race and on my feet all day Saturday, and then was working the VIP team tent area in the morning.   One good thing with having your own race, you get an ok start position.   I was starting next to Mark D. from the team.  I got a pretty good

s tart(which I seem to be able to do usually)  Right before going to the finish line for the first time, I was able to get to Bruce B’s wheel.  I had the opportunity to pre ride the course a  Bruce had not been able to pre ride, and was not riding as smooth as I was.  I got a little impatient and passed Bruce.  This would be short lived as Bruce passed me, then Bill of CXHairs passed me as well.  Around the 2^nd or 3^rd lap my back blew up.  At that point I was in trouble, I went from like 17^th to the 31^st position I ended up at.  I guess Gwadzilla was behind me closing in cause he finished right behind me.   I did ok, but when you loose 15 places you are not going to be too happy.

Tandem

This was the race that I had been thinking about leading up to the race.  I had originally planned to do the race with Sara.  After pre-riding the course, Sara and I thought it best for our relationship that we didn’t ride it together.  I got Matt E. from my team who was a great sport.  He is a really strong rider, and fit the tandem great.  Matt, and I had pre-ridden the course on Sat so we had an idea what we were doing.  We had a slow start, but by the first turn one tandem blew up, and we were in 3rd place.  At the barriers our technique came into play and we were in 2^nd.  The Toms boys caught back up to us, and we were doing ok until we messed up at the stairs(which we did good in practice).  At some point we lost a pedal and some time getting it back on.  I think after that on the backside of the course we saw one of the tandems roll a tubular(don’t use tubulars unless you have defense grade adhesive!)  We lost some time on the uphill pavement, then lost our pedal again.  We fixed it with a pedal wrench, but the damage was done we went into steady mode.  The best part on the tandem was doing the bricks to the downhill, we were doing 33mph there.  I had a good time on the Tandem and will hope to do it again this CX season.

DCCX has gotten better every year, and this year I was really happy with the course, and my little off road addition to the mix.  Sara was great for coming out for the day as she was reading when she could and watchin’ her man do his thing too.