Well, you can forget about easing into the cyclocross season with a few warm dry races like last year. Mother nature was having none of that during this past weekend's Brookside Park Cup and Saint Mary's CX at Fort Harrison (FULL RESULTS). Saturday's race at Brookside was certainly no mud bog but a few light showers had things loosened up a bit and greasy through the off camber sections. Being the second race in the OVCX series this was not a chance to feel things out. It was hard fast racing from the gun. Sunday it was raining by the time you woke up and was still raining when the last race was over. The course went from slick, mushy grass with muddy sections early to one continuous ribbon of chocolate pudding by the end of the day.
Team Indiebike.com p/b Angie's List was represented all day with at least one rider in almost every wave. Joe and Stumpe broke in the course for everyone early in the Cat4 race. Joe was forced to abandon Saturday with "intestinal issues" but managed to stick it out in the mud on Sunday. Stumpe gained maximum style points with his new drag your bike over the barriers by the handlebars technique. My guess is that the bike was just too heavy for him to pick up with all that mud caked on it. Schmitz and Felipe represented well in the Cat3 Masters races. Dustin got off to a rough start both days but rode strong late in the race to finish respectably. Sierra could be found in her usual spot on Sunday, on the podium. Cory had some bad luck on the start Saturday and ended up running his bike around the first half lap with a broken derailleur and a spoke pulled through his rear rim. Sundays start was "clean" but the rest of the race was a long slog as the Elite Men's field was left with a course that showed very little evidence of the grass that had been there earlier in the day.
So needless to say it was a dive headfirst into the CX season. The good news is that if you could survive Sunday's race it isnt going to get much worse. Colder yes, but at least in the snow the ground underneath is usually pretty firm.
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