First CycloCross Race of the Season

Awoke to a gorgeous 75 degree day with a local CX race just down the road. A bike shop, Blue Sky Velo, across the street from the house was putting on one of the local CX races here on the Front Range. They put on a fantastic race and the field size was huge. Even the women's field was huge. Awesome. Dave Towle the local announcer that does national coverage and knows just about everyone out there was at the helm of the microphone. Local legend Pete Webber was on hand throwing down some words too.

Since this was my first CX race of the season I thought I'd go a bit slow. Last year I wound up pulling my hamstring warming up for the first race of the season. Today was just going to be working on technique and try and blow out the chest crud lingering since Kristen and I both got sick afetr the New York wine tour visit.

About 110 of us lined up for the Cat 4 race. It was awesome to see the field sizes so big for all the categories. They staged us according to series points first then registration numbers. Whistle went off promptly at 12:25 and we were off. Full throttle for 45 minutes. The course was long , dry and technical as far as courses go. Just my style. I had James' wheel most of the race but I lost a wheel in a dusty corner and layed the bike down. Picked myself up, jumped over the 3 barriers and hopped back on. After spinning out for awhile I realized the shifter got the brunt of the fall. After messing with it and clearing the dirt out it finally started to work again but by this point James' was out of site. Since this was the 2nd last lap it was difficult to bridge back up.

A solid showing by the RockyMounts/Izze Team with a few podiums and some new members you normally do not see during the regular mountain bike season. It is nice to have the Roadie scene converge with the Mountain biker scene and in turn you get Cyclocross with beer boiled bratwursts, Cowbells, cheering fans, beer and good fun. I love this sport even though it hurts really bad. Not as bad as short track but pretty close.









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