It was a nice change to pack up the bag, make the bike all pretty, and throw the race wheels on again. Something about those race wheels just gets me all giddy! I had a long time off towards the end of the summer mainly due to not reacting very well with this whole full time work thing. I’ve spent most of my 20’s avoiding full time jobs. Instead working 3-4 part time (I use part time loosely) jobs at a time and hoping for prize money to get me to the next race weekend. That got old quick! Now that I feel my body has adjusted and have felt pretty darn good on a bike again my favorite race season is freshly starting... good timing on my part. I can start slightly out of shape and end the season on a good high before the Christmas drinking season is upon us.
This however was probably the worst and most unprepared cx race I’ve ever started the season with. I got the bike probably 10 days before the race weekend, but didn’t set it up for about 4 days. Then of course I really didn’t ride it off road, so I really had no clue how it ride. I did however get a sweet motor pace session behind Bo’s car last Wednesday. You truly can’t beat busting out a 31 mph average on the bike for a good natural high! Anyway, on to what truly killed my weekend was the fact that I tried to go tubeless on the cx bike, a tried and true way to go on the mtb bike for sure. Not so much on the cross bike though. Must be the low volume of the tire, but it flat out doesn’t work. Long story short... Saturday I almost high-sided myself when my rear tire burped almost taking 5 dudes out behind me. Sunday... I Did a full on face plant on an off camber section and broke my rear break in the process. I kind of knew that set up wasn’t ganna work, but I’ve had a lot of trouble finding a set of tubulars less then $1000. After this weekend I might just have to bite the bullet if I want to finish in a respectable spot. Other then that I feel like the fitness isn’t lacking as much I anticipated, as I was in the lead group both days
In other news Captain Todd Freidinger made his cross debut racing in the cat 3 class. With an 8th on Saturday on Trek 9.9 and a 5th place on the Superfly on Sunday. I think there might be a future cross bike purchase in the near future from this guy. Nice work this weekend Todd!
Our other studly teammate went back over to Wisconsin for the Chequnaom 40 and pulled of a very solid and hard earned 4th. A very tough race indeed, one I would prefer never to do actually. I’ll try to talk him into a little race report for a first hand account.
Thanks for reading,
Chad
Photo Credit Andrea Tucker:
