Vanilla Cycles Cyclocross Clinic

Speedvagens galore, well only really like 5.  But nonetheless they are a beautiful piece of bicycle machinery.

Tonight was night 1 of Team Vanilla Cyles cyclocross clinic series.  I was pretty excited to get out there and see who showed up.  While my High-Five is yet to come to america yet,  I was readying the On-One this afternoon.  I built up a single-speed tubular wheelset to race on.  Now there were a lot of little things I had to get done to transfer the On-One back into a racing bike and quite frankly I was running out of time.  So I took the "big girl" my 29'er mountain bike.  This isn't really that absurd because, the "big girl" is light (21 lbs) and has drop bars on it.   It would make a decent cross rig if I threw on a different wheelset,  I am keeping her in my back pocket for the cross series out here just in case it ever gets real crazy wet/muddy.

"Big  Girl" worked just fine all night.   The clinic was  mainly dealing with the technical aspects of mounting/dismounting/barriers/ect...  My mounts/dismounts and high speed turning are all in good shape, I just need to get into good shape.  Tonight was just the motivation I needed to kick my butt into gear.  Technical skill wise I was on par or slightly better than the group I was with (seasoned riders).  The first race is about one month and I am getting very very excited!!!

EVANSTON RACE

Start time 9:30 am

Evanston Illinois

Left milwaukee with teal, picked up jason (chowing down endless mcgriddles) at mcdonalds in kenosha.

Arrived in Evanston around 8:20 plenty of time.  Headed down to registration, the line is long and moving at a snail's pace.  Get out of registration around 9:15.  No time to warm-up.  Frustration rising.

Pinned up and slammed a monster.  Luckily the course is open for pre-riding.  Everyone started lining up.  Sat on the start line for 10 minutes.  The officials then told us to go take a lap.  Came back and waiting for about 20 minutes.  Frustration rising even higher (could have been from the monster).

Race starts and its fast.  Stuck in the middle somewhere.  Five guys go off the front, nothing I can do about it.  Pace stays high around 26~27 mph.  Kept moving up.  Slowly working my way up.  Sitting top 30 and only 7 laps in.  There is a crash ahead of us on a corner.   We are told to slow down and go wait at the start line.  The race was delayed for 20 minutes and they took 2 laps off the race.   Also at that point the front pack had dropped about 40 riders off the back which were allowed to catch up with us.  (frustration peaked) Race restarted its fast again, but not as fast only 25 mph.  A few laps go by and I thought there were 3 left to go so I start moving up.

I was passing about 3~4 riders on every corner and moving up nicely.  Came by the start/finish line and hear 1 lap to go....shit I forgot they shortened the laps.  Everyone starts pushing it.  I kept up my pace and passed a few more.  Did a sit-down sprint towards the finish, end up 25th out of 75.  Not bad, but could have been much much better.

Average speed 26 mph

Top speed 34 mph

Apparently there was something interesting off to the right, also it looks as if Jason's eyes had rolled back into his head.

I did the best pinning job on Teal.

Andrew Utz being swarmed, Teal's ruby reds on the right.

Chris Padfield, 1 st place crusher.

Also on the way back we stopped for food, jason has an obsession with lil' smokies and crayfish.