Monday, August 21, 2017

Wrapping up the season with a pair of 2nd places

It feels a little ridiculous to be wrapping up the season already in early August, but I guess people are really pumped for cyclocross. Now that I have to think about more people in my life than just myself, I can understand that there are more ways to spend one of the limited summer weekends than just racing, recovering, and training. The Hardcore Cycling Club was originally planning on hosting a longer distance event as a double header with United Cycle at Sunridge, but we couldn't get the venue because a colour run had booked it earlier! Good to see that one type of racing is not dying.

After a humbling ride at Nationals, I was back in the groove with some racing on my home turf at Terwillegar. Typical start line chatter "this is pretty much a cyclocross course". "it is not technical at all". Probably coming from people who took B-lines the week before at Canmore. The course still claimed a collarbone and some skin when things were all said and done. I welcomed not having to risk injury 2 times per lap. Embrace the lack of tech!

Great legs from Nationals continued and I was able to ride away from a chase group into a podium position, but the leaders were already out of sight. I was gifted a 2nd place when MVDH's seatpost blew up.


But wait, there's more. I managed to squeeze in another race, a BC Cup at Silverstar to kick off my week of summer vacation on the way to visiting my brother. The loop was short, but had a good mix of newer machine built singletrack, old school rolling trails, and one steeper descent. Conditions were dusty! I was worried about passing opportunities, but that was not much of an issue with only 6 racers starting in my wave. I ended up riding myself into 2nd place, within sight of 1st at a couple of spots, but I had to stop and pump up a slow leak in my front tire. Legs felt great and I enjoyed the rolling terrain that felt similar to Edmonton's trails. Off to vacation!



The lack of racing on the calendar is starting to make me want to put on a race on a great course (Hinton Nordic Center, Nordegg). Throw away the rule book and forget about this 20min lap, double tech/feed zone, spectator friendly, A-line/B-line nonsense. No finish line arch, no U2 blasting at the finish line, no finisher medals,but just a great course with passing opportunities and long singletrack descents that you would ride anyways if you were to spend a weekend in Hinton or Nordegg. Hopefully get a club to back me in the likely event that nobody shows, but at least then I've found out how many people like racing on a course that I would find fun.