Season Wrap

So, it seems traditional to write that "look back at the season, reflect on the season, how was the season, how did I do this season" kind of post. Don't think I'll do the blow by blow, but here are a few tidbits, likes and dislikes from this last cross season...

Likes:

- More & Better races

The races here just got better & better this year. The quality of race promotions is going nothing but UP.

- Support from my wife

She's been nothing but supportive of my race nonsense.

- Great team atmosphere from HPM

Our team has been great this year, a great bunch to race with. That great atmosphere has extended to "the competition" as well. Great competition with great people all year, complete with cyber-stalking, heckling and taunting blog posts. A LOT of fun.

- Lap time data and the timing system

Getting the lap to lap time data has been a really cool addition this year. besides just the plain geek factor, it can be useful for seeing how you race.

- This silly blog is slowly getting more readers

Thanks for reading! I hope it's entertaining. I even got my first nasty comment this year. A whiff of legitimacy? Getting 1100+ hits a month in the heat of cross season. Not the big time, but I'm happy that many of you want to read my rambling.

How I did:

- Meh.

In my normal measurements like finish percentile & crossresults.com points, I was about 7% worse than last season based on finish places.

- Got better at the end

I got better by the last of the season, 2 of the last 3 races I had decent results, so at least I did not burn out, and even better at the end.

- Fun

Either way, I think I had even MORE fun than usual, even with "meh" results. And THAT is the real measure of a cross season for us middle of the pack folks.

Dislikes:

- Course "gimmicks"

Spirals of death and flyovers. Is it just me? I don't think I "get" the appeal of them. Frites built a MONSTER at states, and I appreciate the effort & enthusiasm, but not sure it added to the course. Spirals just make me dizzy.

- USAC takeover

OK, it's DONE, and I'm giving it a fair & unbiased chance. We'll see if it impacts the great growth, momentum and community we have here in Colorado Cross.

So, enough navel gazing. Here is some more entertaining stuff I came across.

Here is what a REAL race bar-cam looks like. Christian Huele with a GoPro on board at the Lievin World Cup - Just like my videos.... well, except just a BIT faster.

And a great, artsy-fartsy videos of women's world cup racing. This guy does AMAZING videos...

4ème Manche de CDM cyclo-cross from Petitesreines on Vimeo.

Geeks & Nationals

Spent my Cross Nationals day this year doing it the easy way. A pint of good Stout & pub food in hand with a bunch of cross-crazed fans to share it all with. Went and joined the Frites en Mayo Guys at the Wynkoop Brewery for their Nationals Viewing Party, what a great idea.

Hats off to Brian & Rich for putting on a great party. May just have been more fun than racing.

Good race to watch, and it was really good to see Jeremy Powers get his jersey finally, and it obviously meant a lot to him. Colorado was not quite the dominating force it has been in the last few additions, but still a resounding show of prowess from the Colorado contingent. My personal hat off to my ski buddy & friend Deirdre Garvey for her career best 4th place in the 50-54 women's race, Great ride for sure, and go give them hell in Louisville, girl!

Even after posting a Statistical Analysis of Cyclocross Lap Times, I thought **I** was the geek on our team, until a nameless teammate (who just happened to kick ass in the beer-drinkin-dads Cross Cup this year...) started to beat me in data analysis as well. He has managed a script-based, load it and go lap time analyzer. His tool shows all the lap times, by lap, for each rider and splits out & labels each team members lap times for easy analysis and trash-talking. Lyons looked like this:

At least I had a decent race at States, and was able to "take apart" my inter-team Nemesis in laps 3 and 4 to prevent a complete rout in our "Rapha-Focus Cross Clash" battle for the year. Geeky, yes, but besides kinda cool, and shows how you are doing lap to lap against the field. An average bar shows if you are "above average" or not lap to lap, just to insure your feelings of inadequacy. With all the data coming out of the chip system now, what's next? Hmmm......

With the Cross Season nearing or past it's end, I guess it's time for the standard season wrap up post. Maybe that's on tap for next time. Best of luck to our Colorado boys & girls hitting up Masters Worlds this weekend!

Rear View Mirror

Part of my holiday time was spent trying to learn more about video editing. What I did come up with was this re-do on my Front & Rear race at the E2 Cross of the North race. My buddy Matt said "wouldn't it be cool to have a rear view mirror view..."

And here is a pass at just that.....

Ho, Ho, Ho.

Merry Christmas to all the bike geeks. May your tree have some fun bike bits under it, to keep the bike fires burning thru the cold season.

I am taking it easy, doing my level best to shovel food & beer into my gullet, while trying to atone for all my fall weekends racing with the wife. But, I did promise some fun stuff, and here it is. I hope to edit down some fun little snippets later on, but here is "Coming & Going", the dual Go-Pro front & rear footage from the E2 Cross of the north race. Now, if I could figure out how to put the rear cam footage in a "rear-view mirror" picture-in-picture insert, along with speed and watt data all on one screen..... Hmmm...

Enjoy the holidays..... well, except for you all heading to Nationals/Worlds... you all, well, er, train or something, OK? Thanks! We'll be watching.

Stick a fork in 'er......

She's DONE.

It's a wrap for the Colorado Cyclocross Season. It sure did manage to go out with a cold, snowy, icy, sloppy, muddy, completely off the hook bang. It was a great last couple of weeks. I ALMOST got my fill of racing in snotty conditions... Almost.

This Year's State Championship was probably THE single hardest cross race I can remember doing. Just. Plain. Hard. The team wanted to end the season by going all out. We got set up early for the post race party.

The Alpha Bikes and the Frites & Mayo boys had also been busy, crafting not only a great course down there, but building this monstrosity.

Sadly, with the damp & wet, the flyover proved to be a bit too steep & slick for use in the morning. Some "traction bars" were added later on, but none of the morning races got to race on the thing. It was a definite rush to ride it, so I had mixed feelings about it getting cut out. Probably for the best, as the race proved to have me SO deep in the haze, I am NOT sure I could have ridden it safely later in our race. Would have been CARNAGE on a biblical scale in the beer-drinkin-dads first lap, for sure.

With the Beer-drinking-dads race WAY out of it's normal early frozen-rut timeframe, we were assured of getting the mud rather than icy ruts this time, and the warm day did NOT disappoint. We rolled off in shorts into a wild and wooly, snotty, snowy killer of a course. The large amount of elevation change, and the intensity needed to NOT lay around on the ground left pretty much ZERO recovery anywhere on the course. After the drag race up the road for a start, we plowed into the mud with me right in the thick of it in the 25 to 30 rider back range. First lap proved to be some crazy fun, close and back & forth racing in the group I was with.

It only somewhat settled down for the second lap, with the video showing me passing or getting passed 10+ times in that lap. Still very close & cool back & forth racing. I tried to stay smooth, conserve a bit on the painfully long bike path climb, then hit it hard on the muddy, twisty bits that followed. Staying upright & smooth seemed to help, as I maintained position about 30 back, from the place call-outs given by my slowly recovering teammate Paul.

By the third lap, I began to really feel the lack of recovery on the course. My arms were starting to feel more like I was back riding the Laramie Enduro, rather than a 40 minute cross race in Castle Rock. The intensity needed to stay smooth was so high, I was wondering if my arms & hands were going to crap out before the last lap came. Of course, it did, but not before I did manage to deck myself on the last lap, just to RE-loose one more spot I had worked really hard to get back after loosing it earlier in the lap on the "bike path of pain" climb. At least the bush was soft.

Drug my carcass in for 34th place out of the 76 finishers. This race had 11 DNFs, a pretty high rate at over 10%, and indicative of the severity of the course conditions, as well as the severity of the suffering. Crashes and mechanicals seemed to be pretty widespread. This finish was a good end to my season, and was pretty happy with it, given the course and just how plain HARD the race was. My compliments to the Alpha/Frites guys. It was a worthy Championship course, without question.

It's been a great season, even with my lackluster results. The Team has been a hoot, making all the pain even more fun. Hanging out with these knuckleheads has been great.

A bit melancholy about the end of the season, but very satisfied. While my body and for sure my wife is happy it's done, my brain will be missing each weeks sufferfest. Such a strange hold this strangely addictive sport has on you. Maybe someday I can figure out just what it is.

Rest up, it's only 9 months to cross season!

Lyons & tigers & bears, oh my.

Sunday in Lyons was yet another hoot. I'm digging all the snow, Ice & Mud right now. The COLD, I can do without. My toes may never get over this last few weeks.

With a SHORT start into snowy off-camber, Lyons was ALL about the start, and I boned that pretty bad. Just seemed to get on the wrong wheels over and over, and did not get aggressive enough when it was not working. I think I ran into 4 back wheels, and got abruptly stopped by having my front wheel kicked by someones premature dismount.

Ended up in the top half, and had a blast. You can see how not to start an icy race here:

So the Last big show for the year has moved to Castle Rock. Since I heard the original venue was pancake flat, I think I like the change. Hints & tweets of "more technical for sure" and "disco flyovers" have me curious about the course. HPM will be there in full force, with compound mode engaged, so stop by, it's the last party for the year.

Have some juicy tidbits from the ACA/BRAC/whatever Colorado racing Local Association meeting last night to share later as well. Changes coming for the season points competition for next year, seems like for the better. I also have a cool video edit coming up from running front AND rear cameras at the E2 Cross of the north race, idea and second camera courtesy of my teammate Johnny D.

That was supposed to be a "teaser", so stay tuned, and rock on at the big finish party this weekend down south. Time to wrap it up ya'll.

Double the fun, double the pain

It's been since the Boulder Cup/Halloween weekend since I pulled a double. I forgot how much that hurts. Headed up to Loveland for the E2 Cross of the North race Saturday, then out to Lyons for the Boulder Cyclocross Series final.

The Cross of the North race was a really good one. a great venue (think a heated building to warm up in, change in and power wash your bike in.....), and a VERY well run race, that the promoters put a BUNCH of work into (Think plowing a full course, bobcat work, and all that...). Those guys put on a great show, too bad they only managed to drag 159 riders up there to race. The bubble effect remains in full form.

Had a great race up there, even taking into account the mere 30 rider beer-drinkin-dads field. At 9:05, it was still full-on COLD and the course was 100% frozen rut central, with a packed snow topping. Got a front row call up on my pre-reg hip number, after Tim Madden was only able to draw ONE rider off the top 40 of the Crossresults.com list. Managed to grab 6th off the first snow section into a gnarly "BMX hump/drop/run-up/drop hump" section. Here's Dan Farrell "dropping in" on that little Gem in the 35+ race.

Seems as if the rider right behind me balked at the nasty drop and shut it down behind me. this sprung the front 6 free. It quickly split into single riders in the tough, slick conditions. It started to melt about 1 lap in to our race, and each lap was a new adventure as the course started changing fast. I held off a late charge form a couple of people, mostly by just making fewer driving errors, to hold out for a 7th place out of 28 finishers. By far my best percentile placing of the year. Felt good to finally get a decent race in.

Here is the first lap seatpost cam for the Cross of the north race.

I was talked into running front AND rear cameras for this race by my teammate Johnny D. Am going to cobble together a "Coming & Going" kinda production off that, but will take some time. Watch for it.

Today's Lyons race was HARD. Technical, snowy, and nasty. In other words, really cool. Pulled a 29th out, in spite of feeling blown from racing the day before. That same teammate pulled out a podium finish in 3rd today, and 2 other teammates in the points. A great day for the HPM crew today.

I'll have more on the Lyons race later this week, but for now I need to go to bed.......