Not Suck

Alright gang, here's the race reports from this weekend's races.

WCA Cyclocross Series Race #3
Whitewater Trash Dash, Whitewater WI

I'm sure some of my faithful readers saw the quick recap of Saturday's fiasco already. It rained Friday night, so mud was expected, and desired. What wasn't expected was the race venue. Lets just say that for various reasons, capped landfills don't like lots of rain or bike racers. Brian and I were walking around when we first got there, and it felt like walking on a waterbed. The weather was perfect, around 45, overcast, and no rain.

Brian and I had front row starts, and entered the race course around 5th or 6th place. I moved up nicely the first lap and was second wheel after lap 1. I stayed more or less in the front group for the second lap, but just kept moving back after that. I couldn't find a good line through the mud, and could never get in a rhythm. I had only one gear as all the others were so packed with mud that the deraileur couldn't move. So that was that. After the race I noticed that if I tried to spin my front wheel with my hand, it would immediately come to a stop from all the mud and grass. I ended up in 9th position, which wasn't quite as bad as I thought, but still not good for series points. Brian had a rough go of it, and wisely dropped out after the first few laps.

Here's some stats from the HRM:
Excercise Time: 42:04
Average Heart Rate: 192
Max Heart Rate: 197

After the race, Brian and I went to the car wash and blasted all the decomposing diapers off our bikes. That worked really well. I recomend it if you bike ever triples in weight from mud.

WCA Cyclocross Series Race #4
Cam-Rock Cyclocross, Cambridge, WI

It snowed Saturday evening, and not just melt-instantly-on-the-ground-snow, but still-on-the-ground-in-the-shade-24-hours-later-snow. So again it was going to be muddy, but unlike the landfill, Cam-Rock Park has had 4.5 billion years to figure out drainage. Sunday's weather was sunny, but bitterly cold. The course was mostly singletrack with tacky mud, or 1-2 inch greasy peanut butter mud.

Brian and I got to the start about 2 seconds too late, and ended up in the back. Shitty. I think I was in last place entering the singletrack. When you got offline the course was so greasy it made passing difficult. Anyway, I slipped and slid my way to the front group of 4 about half way through the first lap. I stayed at the back of the group for a quarter of a lap, and moved to the front. Being at the front is much easier as you can see the entire trail, and pick and choose the lines that are best, instead of just following the guy in front of you. I upped the pace at the front, and Sachs Boy (who, I imagine, will be blogged about in the future, as he is a major a-hole) was the only one that could hang. He pimped me at the start/finish line on lap 1 for the beer prime, but I attacked early on lap 2 and dropped him easily. I rode off the front with a very comfortable lead the rest of the race for my first win. Yay!

There was actually a bike wash at this race, so instead of cooling off and putting on warm clothes, I went and hosed off my bike. Then I noticed they had free beer, so I drank some ice cold beer, so needless to say, the 40 minute sweat fest+the water hose+the cold liquid in my gut+the vasodilation from the alcohol made me mildly hypothermic. Heathrow was getting a kick out of watching me shiver violently causing me to spill my beer. After the beer I went and sat by the fire and drank hot apple cider and eventually became normothermic.

HRM stats:

Excercise Time: 41:04

Average Heart Rate: 191

Max Heart Rate: 196

Calories Burned: 858

Another big thanks to my wifey for being my water girl/photographer.