Relegated!
Saturday CX - Hudson
I headed over to Hudson, Wisco for the CX race with Bella Maria on Saturday. She brought the Kona MTB with some sweet commuter wheels for her cross rig. That girl does it all - last year she did the Boom Island CX on a road bike, with regular road tires. Wow. Anyway, we pre-rode the course and I decided that it was pretty much made for me - flat and fairly technical with lots of tight corners, sand and mud. There was one little drop-off into a puddle, and Maria warned me after we warmed up not to go off the left side of it, because there was a big hole that she'd been fortunate enough to ride into. I saw bits of the C race and StevenCX even waved at me as he flew through a corner. Hi StevenCX!
So the B race lined up with 55 people, 5 of them women, and after the official finished going over some details, Linda S let everyone know that it was my birthday, and they all sang happy birthday to me on the start line. How nice - gosh, I was all choked up. The course went through a couple narrow turns near the beginning and there was some bottleneck action pretty soon after our start. I had started near the back, so I tried to work my way up a bit as we came to the puddle drop-off. Apparently, I suffered an attack of moronism, because when Maria said left, I was thinking right, and I came into the drop-off on the far left, thinking I was fine. And I went straight into the hole which sucked up my front wheel and sent me sprawling into the puddle. Betty A came sprawling on top of me, which was nothing but fun, but soon we were both up and going again. I was totally enjoying the course, and soon I caught up to Linda S - that's saying a lot. She's superfast, an awesome CXer and she always beats me. I came around her in one of the corners and the two of us started working our way through the B men - it was a ton of fun, and I was thinking it was going to be awesome to duke it out with her at the finish, but then I hit some glass and flatted. Darn! Linda told me to use her wheel out of the pit, so I started running with my bike back towards the wheel pit. I chatted with the officials, who were confused as to where I had come from, as was I, and it was sounding like they weren't going to let that fly. So I told them I just wanted to ride, and then jumped back into the race with Linda's wheel, about a half lap down from where I was. In the end, I was relegated to last place because I left the pit going the wrong direction. I'm still a little confused, but that's normal. And tons of people said happy birthday while I was racing, which was sweet. The Alan guys put on a great race and it was a beautiful day for it!
Sunday CX - Orono
This morning, I headed out to the Orono High School to race - it was the same place we raced last year, but they changed up the course a little bit. It still had the same brutal run-up, but they threw in an extra set of barriers and a sand pit. Not as technical as yesterday either, so I wasn't as psyched. There were 5 women in the B race again today - Bella Margot, Linda S, Linda C, Betty C, and myself. It was pretty good starting out, Margot took a flyer after rocking through the sand pit on the first lap as the rest of us sort of piled up. After a while though, Linda and Linda reeled her in as I hung on to their wheels. Margot dropped back a little way after her huge effort, and after 19 minutes the Lindas dropped me. So I was psyched about the first 19 minutes. Soon Margot caught up to me, and the two of us worked together for the rest of the race - wow, it was really nice to have a teammate to keep me going and trade pulls with. We actually were slowly gaining on the other two women towards the end of the race, but not enough to really pose a threat. Margot nipped me at the line - she's got quite the sprint!
After our race was the C race, where Bella Barb and Bella Manda showed their CX skills. Nice job ladies!
All in all everyone had a fun race, and it was another gorgeous day to be out!
I headed over to Hudson, Wisco for the CX race with Bella Maria on Saturday. She brought the Kona MTB with some sweet commuter wheels for her cross rig. That girl does it all - last year she did the Boom Island CX on a road bike, with regular road tires. Wow. Anyway, we pre-rode the course and I decided that it was pretty much made for me - flat and fairly technical with lots of tight corners, sand and mud. There was one little drop-off into a puddle, and Maria warned me after we warmed up not to go off the left side of it, because there was a big hole that she'd been fortunate enough to ride into. I saw bits of the C race and StevenCX even waved at me as he flew through a corner. Hi StevenCX!
So the B race lined up with 55 people, 5 of them women, and after the official finished going over some details, Linda S let everyone know that it was my birthday, and they all sang happy birthday to me on the start line. How nice - gosh, I was all choked up. The course went through a couple narrow turns near the beginning and there was some bottleneck action pretty soon after our start. I had started near the back, so I tried to work my way up a bit as we came to the puddle drop-off. Apparently, I suffered an attack of moronism, because when Maria said left, I was thinking right, and I came into the drop-off on the far left, thinking I was fine. And I went straight into the hole which sucked up my front wheel and sent me sprawling into the puddle. Betty A came sprawling on top of me, which was nothing but fun, but soon we were both up and going again. I was totally enjoying the course, and soon I caught up to Linda S - that's saying a lot. She's superfast, an awesome CXer and she always beats me. I came around her in one of the corners and the two of us started working our way through the B men - it was a ton of fun, and I was thinking it was going to be awesome to duke it out with her at the finish, but then I hit some glass and flatted. Darn! Linda told me to use her wheel out of the pit, so I started running with my bike back towards the wheel pit. I chatted with the officials, who were confused as to where I had come from, as was I, and it was sounding like they weren't going to let that fly. So I told them I just wanted to ride, and then jumped back into the race with Linda's wheel, about a half lap down from where I was. In the end, I was relegated to last place because I left the pit going the wrong direction. I'm still a little confused, but that's normal. And tons of people said happy birthday while I was racing, which was sweet. The Alan guys put on a great race and it was a beautiful day for it!
Sunday CX - Orono
This morning, I headed out to the Orono High School to race - it was the same place we raced last year, but they changed up the course a little bit. It still had the same brutal run-up, but they threw in an extra set of barriers and a sand pit. Not as technical as yesterday either, so I wasn't as psyched. There were 5 women in the B race again today - Bella Margot, Linda S, Linda C, Betty C, and myself. It was pretty good starting out, Margot took a flyer after rocking through the sand pit on the first lap as the rest of us sort of piled up. After a while though, Linda and Linda reeled her in as I hung on to their wheels. Margot dropped back a little way after her huge effort, and after 19 minutes the Lindas dropped me. So I was psyched about the first 19 minutes. Soon Margot caught up to me, and the two of us worked together for the rest of the race - wow, it was really nice to have a teammate to keep me going and trade pulls with. We actually were slowly gaining on the other two women towards the end of the race, but not enough to really pose a threat. Margot nipped me at the line - she's got quite the sprint!
After our race was the C race, where Bella Barb and Bella Manda showed their CX skills. Nice job ladies!
All in all everyone had a fun race, and it was another gorgeous day to be out!
posted by karla at 7:13 PM
2 Comments:
What a great weekend for it! Sorry to miss the races, but I'm glad you had a good time and I WILL get out there to watch soon!
Go Bellas!!!!
yes, finally someone else besides me has been relegated!
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