THERE WILL BE MUD

Season in review

It is the end of the racing season for me once again, this is a time for review to see what I have accomplished this season (technically the US Grand Prix is coming up on December 6th/7th and I am racing it).

Originally my goals were to move to Cat 3 on the road.
Fail, but at least got some points on the board.

Start mountain biking.
Success and had fun doing it.

Survive Portland cyclocross and see where I fit in.
Success in my opinion. With a decent starting position I could usually work up to mid-20s or 30s out of 100 or so riders in the B category.

Super commuting
Success, my bike has full fenders, moustache bars, and a front basket now.

Overall I am happiest with my cyclocross season. This is my favorite style of racing and in my opinion where I excel, and one of the main reasons on why I moved to Portland.

Preliminary goals for next season:

Road
Actually move to Cat 3 in OBRA and compete occasionally during the road season.

Mountain
Compete in the short track series on my 29'er and have a lot of fun exploring Oregon wilderness and hopefully get a full suspension mountain bike.

Cyclocross
Be a top 20 A rider or better. This is my main goal for next season and my whole training purpose.

Commuting
Not get hit, live a car free life, and never wear an orange reflective vest or ankle straps.

Find a local like-minded team that I can join.

Cross Crusade 8 (State Championships Hillsboro)

The OBRA Cross Crusades championships, I have done all the races (except for one) this entire season, it has been a season of delicious oatmeal, hot apple cider, minor injuries, bad starts, and lots of mud.  But I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

This race yielded another bad lottery starting position (I will never gamble) and I was third from the last out, so that started me around 80^th or so.  The start was fast, but since I have been starting at the rear of every race I have been greatly improving my starting style.  I am able to quickly pass 15~~20 riders before the first technical section.  This is where it always gets complicated.

The first technical section was a “mystery” steaming wood chip pile section that was about 100ft long or so.  With a wood chip burm going into it and another wood chip burm coming out of it.  Being early into the race this yield into a 100 person pile-up.  Like everyone else I dismounted and started running passed people until I snagged my rear wheel on some guy’s handlebars and I started dragging him.  It took a second during this mayhem to unhook this dead weight and I was quickly back on the bike and riding off.

Overall it wasn’t an overly technical course, almost all the turns were rutted and slippery but compared to everything else that has been thrown at us this season it wasn’t a big deal.  There was the standard 6-pack of barriers but with a straight and fast entry and exit.

The major hilariously technical section was the rodeo arena where we pretty much had to do a large u-turn around 100 yards long.   I pre-rode this section three times to see if I could figure a way through it.  The first time I rode and got about 40% in, when I hit a hidden hole that sucked my front wheel in up to my hub, I stopped instantly and almost fell.  A quick mental note on the location and I tried it again.  This time I avoided the hidden pit, but it was still next to impossible to ride.  On my third attempt I tried constantly popping wheelies to keep my front wheel from being sucked in, this also put more weight on my back wheel yielding some more traction.  This surprisingly worked fairly well and I was able to power through this ridiculous section.

After pre-riding this section my bike was beyond muddy as was my body.  I had to go over to the wash area and clean everything off.  Oregon is probably the only place where you get beyond dirty from pre-riding the course.

Overall it was a very fast paced race.  I ended up finishing around 38^th on the day, which is fairly mediocre, but considering my starting position I am still fairly happy with it.

While the Cross Crusades series is over that does not mean cyclocross has ended in Oregon at all.  The US Grand Prix series will be in Portland at PIR in December.  I am really looking forward to this race because all the fast boys/girls are coming to town to show off what they got.  This was also one of my favorite courses so far this season and I am also looking forward to some first rate super fanning to happen.  Ryan Trebon will be back and I am ready to yell at this fast fast stork of a man that has more seat tube than top-tube on his bike.

Also I just found this, Portland offers a bicycle racer specific yoga class…..interesting http://www.umakleppinger.com/bikeyoga.html

A Vanilla rider powering through the slop



The easier section of the rodeo arena.



A lot of people actually ran the whole length of it and it proved to be fairly successful. I opt to ride as much as possible because well I race bikes to not run.



Steaming wood chip section.



I think she has a smile on her face.

Cross Crusade 7 (PIR) SSCXWC

Now I have been bicycle racing for almost two years now and I was very unprepared for todays events. The magnitude of everything today was extremely off the charts and it has been the most fun I have ever had bike racing or super-fanning.

For starters it was Ruckus Components give-away day. One of the lucky recipients gave me a custom cowbell of epic proportions and the tastiest garlic mayonnaises french fries in existence. Also to boot for $3 you got a nice Cross Crusade pint glass. Which comes with UNLIMITED BEER ALL DAY. Yes UNLIMITED BEER ALL DAY. 21 kegs were demolished through-out the day.

My friend Alex has been in town and was interested in trying a cross race. He told me that he had been biking quite a bit. So I lent him Rita, my 29er mountain bike. Alex got the DFL award (dead fucking last) of the beginner category. He came back muddy and extremely tired and then proceeded to drink his share of beer (11 pints in total). Alex did a great job, he never quit and finished the race completely and had a great time and seems to be hooked now.

Having about 3 hours to kill before my race I got in a lot of good scouting and pre-riding in. It was very very very necessary. The course was muddy. Not wet spray in your face muddy like last week, but slow, sticky, energy sapping muddy. Some parts were so sticky that even on the flats it was near impossible to ride.

I don't know what it is, but apparently I suck at lotterys. My number was second to last today (started about 90th). Luckily the start was a decently long straight-away before it reached the first technical section. I dropped every hammer I was carrying and passed a large number of riders quickly working up to mid 60s.

The first technical section was insane. There was a tough muddy off camber uphill section which then kicked you down into a 6 inch deep sticky mudhole that basically grabbed onto you and took away every bit of momentum you were carrying. This was brutal sometimes I was able to punch it out of the hole and then attempt the next hill which was painfully muddy as well. It was really hit or miss if people could ride it or not. If you were able to stay on the bike and keep moving you would definitely pass people. But if you had to dismount at all, you were screwed. It was pretty much impossible to get riding again and you had to end up running a long ways before you could remount.

Part of this section also had a rutted muddy downhill section which put you in a water pit area about 30 ft long. This was almost a relief because your tires would get cleaned off a little, but shortly there after more energy sucking mud.

After this brutal hell hole of mud. You had a short section of crushed gravel which lead to a large concrete "barrier". This was a great place to super fan because various people were able to launch up it and jump it. Following the "barrier" there was a calm section of large swooping grass turns. A lot of riders were recovering here and going slower. This is when I would turn it up and pass a lot of guys.

For the B race, they decided to add more barriers and put in a small double barrier section along the grandstands. After this there was a few quick turns a short downhill and then a four pack of barriers up a muddy hill through a wind mill that would turn periodically. Following this set there was a very slippery off camber turn and then onto some more crushed gravel onwards to the second technical section.

A quick uphill and then a mud pit which would quickly wreck any plans of holding a line going into the hardest section of the day. A very very very steep dowhill section with a 180 degree turn at the bottom and then back up it. Imagine the steepest hill you know, run down it go 10 ft then try and run back up. Now do this when it is extremely rutted out and so muddy that you can hardly stay upright. This was the best place to super-fan because everyone was sliding down the hill hilariously. The uphill was way too steep to ride so some riders would just run the whole section. These got heckled. Others would try and coast to the bottom, sometimes successfully and other well lets just say they made it to the bottom. I slid down this hill on my side four out of nine times I attempted it. Luckily three of those were during warm-up laps. Once past this section there was a long twisty fast and muddy section and then the finish line.

Overall I felt great and raced fairly well. I passed over a hundred some riders and ended up 30th overall. My main personal victory is that I only got lapped ONCE by Ryan Trebon.

SIDE NOTE: They made a special qualifier for Ryan Trebon for him to race the SingleSpeed World Championships race. He had to win the regular SingleSpeed race and then must win the Mens A race on a SingleSpeed if was going to race in the last race. Three hours of brutal racing should tire him out and it kind of did. He very very easily won the first two races and then got third in the championship race. Also I heckled him to a hilarious degree every time he would come by.

Now that I was done racing it was time for some serious super-fanning with my new cowbell for the SSCXWC. I got a good number of beers in me first and then was ready. I really regret not doing this race. It looked like an amazing amount of fun. They were setting off smoke bombs on the course, had the windmill rotate faster, put out more barriers and turned on a large foam machine to make a foam wall. More than half the field was in costume of some sorts to some ridiculous degree. Tandems/burleys/eXtracycls/bmx it was all legal as long as it was singlespeed. My favorite of the day was one guy had nine 19 tooth cogs in the back and two 39 tooth chainrings in the front and full derailleurs. Now he could shift but it would always be the same gear. This race was amazing too watch, it was pure insanity.

 

EDIT:  Bike weight before race 17.2 lbs.  Bike weight after race 24.5 lbs.  That is a lot of mud.



Cutest tandem couple ever.  This guy from Canada got heckled a lot.

 



Who wears white shoes, white socks, and a white shirt to a muddy cross race?  Oh wait Alex does.

 



Pink Spider Man attacking the foam.

 



Me running the concrete barrier.

 



Polka dot biking+Cowbell+leg warmers+rain boots = Portland Cyclocross



Foam wall part 2.



This area was hilarious to watch. 

 



This guy and I went back and forth for the last two laps.  He could bunny hop barriers and ride everything I couldn't but was slower on the straight aways.  He beat me.

 



Alex attacking the barriers, shirt still clean.

 



Awesome drum group.

 



Painfully running towards the windmill.

 



This section was tricky.

 



This is the tricky downhill off camber and then run up section.

 



There was a sit up contest to decide to won this frame.

 



I am not sure exactly what this guy in PBR cans was.



Crowd shot.

 

This guy could jump the concrete barrier quite well.



SMOKE BOMB

Viewing Pleasure

Cross Crusade 6 (Barton Park)

Now this is cyclocross.

Try to explain to anyone why you would pay $22 to possibly injure yourself, break expensive components, get soaking wet, eat large volumes of mud, and stain everything you brought that day and they would certainly not understand unless they also raced cyclocross.  Barton park is a race of what cross dreams are made of.  It was impossible to look around at the some 1200 racers and spectators and not see a huge smile underneath layers of mud on the faces of everyone.

Best photographer at Cross Crusades, I highly suggest click through the slideshow.

http://pdxcross.com/2008/11/03/barton-park-photo-slideshow/

As the Mens B and Singlespeeders were lining up, the sky opened up and began to rain even more.  As this happened the approaching sounds of sirens were heard.  First an ambulance and then a firetruck and various police cars.   Brad Ross explained that someone just got seriously injured (later found out that it was a broken jaw) on a very very treacherous off-camber/rocky/muddy/slippery/steep downhill section.  The OBRA officials decided to quickly cut out this part of the course because someone had already broke their collarbone on this same section earlier in the day.  Honestly I was relieved this part was really scary to ride and I mainly just held on for dear life and tried to keep my wheels underneath me.  

The lottery system was once again my foe.  My number was third from the end.  Oh well today was more about having fun than racing at this point.  The start was a fast pavement section that lead to a sweeping gravel road.  This was one of two portions of the course that were moderately safe.  All of the downhills had large smooth rocks on them (very very slippery) and there was mud and standing water on every section of the course.  

According to UCI (cyclocross governing body) barriers must be a maximum of 18 inches in height unless they are natural barriers.  In the Cross Crusades the word "natural" means large concrete walls much much taller than 18 inches.  There were two sets of these "natural" Portland barriers.

It was hard to hold any sort of line while riding through this course.  It was very easy to slide off track and quickly go out of bounds (I lost track of how many times I did this).  Overall I was not on my A game at all.  Clearly lacking techincal skills I was going fairly slowly and then kicking on the turbo boosters on anything that was moderately safe.  I did alright to hang with a group of riders for the most of the day.  Overall I was having too much fun too focus on going extremely fast (loser talk) and finished 68th out of 100 riders or so.

My victory is that I didn't fall and hurt myself or wreck anything.  I also finished the day with a few beers, some complimentary hot apple cider from Chris King, and a bowl of the most delicious oatmeal from Bob's Red Mill.  These two sponsors are at every race feeding and hydrating everyone for free.  

The highlight of the day was watching everyone clean off themselves and their bikes in the biggest "cleanest" puddle.  After the Womens A race, there were many ladies soaking wet and covered in mud cleaning off.  I am sure many guys were dreaming of this moment all season.

It took me 45 minutes to clean my bike and 3 repeated loads of laundry to get my jersey clean.

Here is a video shot from the day, it shows all the hilarity that ensued from the steep hills and wet slippery conditions.