Complete Turnaround: Race Report

Last weekend I did my first two cyclocross races. My first race was the beginner Cat 4 race at Psyclofest. The race was only 30 minutes long and the official decided that everyone could complete three laps in that time. The course was fast with lots of flat sections on packed dirt or pavement, but the run up Phil’s Hill was quite brutal. Only seven people signed up for the race which was kind of disappointing, but I was expecting this kind of turnout. Everyone at the start of the race was pretty timid and things were pretty slow for the first lap and I remember thinking that my practice lap with Chad Bishop was faster than what we were going. The group was still all together when we reached Phil’s Hill for the first time and I decided to make things interesting and went up the hill hard. I looked back shortly after I remounted my bike and discovered that I a pretty sizeable gap, so I went with it and never looked back. Two laps later I won my first cyclocross race and I was pretty excited. The guy in second came in around a minute thirty after me and third came shortly after that. I went and got my trophy and it has a guy running on top of it. I’m thinking about gluing a toy bike to the guy’s shoulder.

I was feeling pretty good, so I decided that I would do the Middle Park Madness race too, but I did the Cat 3/4 race instead of the Beginner Cat 4. This race was forty-five minutes long or about 6.5 laps (we started in the middle of the course) and there were more hills and corners than the Psyclofest course. It also had a run up, but it wasn’t as bad as Phil’s Hill. The Cat 3/4 race was much faster than my other race, and for the first two or three laps I was hanging around 6-9 position, but I couldn’t hang with them for long and slowed down for the rest of the race. I finished 17th out of 21 which was fine with me considering the competition I was going against. A lot of riders that race Cat 1/2 on the road did this race, so I can’t be too disappointed with my result even though it was a complete turnaround of the day before.

Tomorrow is the first day of Jingle Cross Rock and I’m racing at 9:30 in the morning. Hopefully I will put up a good result and/or win a door prize. I’ll post a race report and photos from the Dice races and Jingle Cross sometime next week.