When I told some of my friends and teammates that I was doing a cyclocross race in July, they thought I was crazy (“Doesn’t that not start for, like, another two months?” Ben and Jeremy asked). But I couldn’t wait to go. ‘Cross is my focus this year, so I decided to throw in the towel on my lackluster road season and get right to the good stuff. Yes, for me, “the good stuff” involves bombing over rutted grass, taking 180-degree turns through mud, jumping off my bike and over planks, jumping back on again, then trying to finish respectably in the face of coughing up snot and wanting to puke. Fortunately, about a hundred or so other bike racers also shared the insanity that is ‘crosslust, and joined me in Augusta, NJ for a weekend of bikes, mud, muscle shirts, strollers in beer tents, and, of course, 4H quilting exhibits.

I had Friday off of work, so I loaded up the car, got some coffee, and then rolled over to JP to pick up my friend David, who was going to race the men’s elites and got assigned the job of navigating about ten pages’ worth of Mapquest directions. Thankfully, he was up to it: it was sunny when we departed Boston, but once we reached the middle of Connecticut the weather became a full-on Herman Melville-style squall. At some points I was white-knuckling it at 40 miles an hour, barely able to see the car in front of me.

This totally rad weather front meant that by the time we arrived in Augusta, parts of the Sussex County Fairgrounds were covered in a glorious layer of slop. We de-racked our bikes, talked to some fellow racers, then walked around and scoped out the course. About half of it looked like a normal ‘cross course, marked off with the requisite stakes and tape. My “tape reflex” (which involves smiling dreamily and drooling a little every time I see stakes and tape, and had been inadvertently set off at crits earlier in the year featuring children’s grass races) engaged… and then I saw the rest of the course. It was a dirt arena-turned-mud-pit in front of the bleachers, and a bunch of fluorescent mesh worms from IKEA marked off what the race organizer referred to as the “spiral of death”: a series of twisting turns with a junk car in the middle of it all. Originally we were supposed to compete on a run-up over the junk car, but the organizers had lost power and were unable to finish building the run-up.

I took a lap or two on the course, trying to figure out which lines to take through the mud. A fall during the warmup revealed that under the mud was a layer of asphalt (this was why the worms were used instead of stakes and tape). This was great in one sense because it meant the mud was rideable, but it also meant that any crashes in it were not just going to cause me to lose time: they were going to hurt like hell.

From the “spiral of death,” the course went over a short grassy hill, around a tight chicane of a turn (mmm… grass chicanes… how I missed you) that required picking a good line in advance from the top of the hill, and through more turns in the grass, winding around some animal stalls and back to a set of wooden plank barriers. The barriers came shortly after a turn but still allowed for a little momentum coming through, so I figured this race would be terrific practice. After the barriers, there was another small, muddy hill, then a turn back up and over the same hill, then a straightway past the pit, and back into the spiral. The course was shorter than the average ‘cross course, but given the resources available, it was pretty authentic.

My race, a combined M/F novice field, was at 6 p.m. All competitors were staged by their rankings on crossresults.com, which was pretty sweet because I got called up to the front row right before my friend Lang (I wore number 71; he was 72). We mock-glared at each other briefly and decided that the battle was ON. The whistle went off and we converged across the field, headed for the spiral. I was fighting for a decent position and ended up about ten back from the hole shot, gasping for air as we started turning through the mud. The first two laps were agony; then somehow I rocketed past Lang in the barriers between laps 3 and 5 and never saw him again. I still felt awful but at least my race was going okay–I was pretty sure I was first woman by a long shot. The laps were short–that, and the fact that I kept finding chewy (and nutritious!) chunks of mud in my mouth, made the race seem longer than it actually was. Fortunately, the men’s leader lapped me somewhere near the finish and relieved me of doing one more lap. I ended up finishing 13th overall (thereby preserving my crossresults lead over Lang, who finished 16th), and getting 1/7 for the novice women, with a gap of 3+ minutes (thanks, mud!). Midfield in a mixed-gender race and first among the women were both better results than I’d expected, so I was ecstatic.

Here are some photos of the cat. 2/3 race by David Goligorsky.

Christian Eager, photo by David Goligorsky

Eric Silva, photo by David Goligorsky

Christian Eager, photo by David Goligorsky

Below are more photos from the cat. 4 race by Christian Eager.

Ken Han, photo by Christian Eager

David Goligorsky, photo by Christian Eager

Eric Martin on his Merlin cyclo-cross bike, photo by Christian Eager

Photo by Kenneth Han

Photo by John Naegle

See more photos taken by John Naegle and Kenneth Han.

Register at BikeReg.com

Sponsors

• QuadCycles, 1346 Massachusetts Ave, Arlington, MA
• Middlesex Community College
• Town of Bedford, MA
• Perkins Electric

Directions

By car from Route 128 North or South

Take exit 32 onto Route 3 North

Follow route 3 North 6 miles and take exit 27 Concord Road

Turn left onto Concord road

Follow Concord road 1 mile turn left onto Technology Park Drive

Follow Technology Park Drive .6 miles

Turn right onto Orchard then left into Middlesex Community College Campus

By car from route 495 North or South

Take exit 35 onto route 3 South

Follow route 3 South 7 miles and take exit 27 Concord Road

Turn left onto Concord road

Follow Concord road .7 mile turn left onto Technology Park Drive

Follow Technology Park Drive .6 miles

Turn right onto Orchard then left into Middlesex Community College Campus

By ‘Cross Bike from the Bedford end of the Minuteman Bike Path

Right into parking lot at the end of the trail

Cross Loomis Street onto the Narrow Gauge Rail Trail (just to the right of Express Pizza)

Follow NGRT, turns to dirt, 2 miles to the Fawn Lake Conservation Area parking lot

Right onto Sweetwater Road, follow .1 miles to end

Straight onto dirt trail .1 miles

Right onto Fawn Circle .1 miles

Left onto Springs Road .25 miles

Turn Right into Middlesex Community College Campus

by Christian Eager

Thanksgiving weekend means I get to travel back to Maryland to visit my family. It also means I request off my usual Sunday shift at work, and I finally get to do two ‘cross races in one weekend. Here’s a somewhat-verbose summary of each:

Saturday, November 25
Sutliff HUMMER PA State Cyclocross Championship
Carlisle, PA

In spite of the title sponsor, I decided this would be a good, fuel-efficient race to do, only 2 hours from my house. I signed up for the B race (my first one; my first 5 ‘cross races were in C) because it was at 11, as opposed to the 9 a.m. C race. The pre-reg list was small, and because I’d gotten 4th and 6th in my past two C races, I figured I’d be able to at least hang with the field and not get DFL. I arrived an hour before the race, got my number, and was suited up with 35 minutes to go. I did a couple laps of the course, which was on the county fairgrounds. It had a nice variety of terrain, a coupe of short power hills (no run-ups), a fun downhill section with several off-camber 180° turns, and two sets of double barriers. I went back to my car to get some water and a carbohydrate gel (silly me, I only brought my skinsuit in my suitcase, so I couldn’t stick a bottle in my back pocket). Staging seemed to be pretty low-key, and the B race wasn’t at the line yet. I started riding across the fairgrounds to the staging area. I bunny-hopped a small ditch on my hoods, and my handlebars slipped forward (I flew home, and am always wary of over-tightening when I put my bike back together). Luckily, the pit was right by the start, and I found a guy with a hex wrench and adjusted and tightened my bars. Unfortunately, by that time they were at the line, my hear rate was up, and I started the race in last position. That spelled doom, of course, as I was one of the last through the hole shot onto the course, and was playing catch-up the whole race.

The race itself was rather ho-hum. The course was fun, but nothing of note happened. I felt strong, battled with, dropped, and towards the end overtook a couple of guys. On the final lap, I was gaining on a group of three, and would have overtaken them had there been another 50 or 100 meters of pavement leading up to the finish line, as they were clearly fading fast. Sadly, I ran out of road and finished 13th of 21 starters.

It felt good to finally do a race that lasted longer than 35 minutes (I was on-course for about 46), and I got some good handling practice, especially on those off-camber 180s. I’m definitely in a position where I’m stronger than most people in the C race, but lose time on technical sections.

Sunday, November 26
MABRA Cross Championships
Taneytown, MD

This race was the Maryland-Delaware-Washington, DC-Northern Virginia district championship race. Only an hour from my house, I was able to get up for the 10 a.m. C race without much trouble (The B race was tempting, considering my result from the day before, except it was 2 hours later, and I had a plane to catch later in the day). On top of that, who doesn’t want to try to win a race?

I was probably the first bike racer there (there was a charity 5k run scheduled for 8:30 a.m.), because I overestimated travel time. There was also a good deal of fog on the drive up, and on the course itself – visibility was less than 1/10th of a mile at times. That delayed the junior race, scheduled for 9:30. It also made me assume that the C race would be delayed. (You already know the moral: don’t assume.) I did a few laps of the course (relatively flat, with one short run-up, a couple of muddy patches, one set of double barriers, and a few technical corners. It was a pretty fast course, with a couple of mucky, power-straight-aways), and at 9:50 went back to the car, to get some water and a gel. See a pattern?

Thankfully, I decided to take my water to the staging area and watch the juniors go off. As the staging area came into view, I saw a lot of people on their bikes, and they looked a lot bigger than juniors. I tossed my bottle and high-tailed it to the starting line. The C men, B women, and juniors were all switching their numbers from the right side to the left – the chief referee and race promoter had had a disagreement, and the finish line had been moved for the first race, thus causing everyone to have their numbers on the incorrect side. Big problem. I was in my skinsuit, and had no teammates to help me out. I started undoing pins, but couldn’t get the one in the corner on my shoulder blade. Luckily, I was standing next to the referee-starter, and he took pity on me. He undid the last pin, and re-pinned my number on the last side. I was able to grab a spot on the first row (of two), and the race started about one minute later.

The start was a wide, 200m stretch of pavement into a left-turn, and I was in about 7th position. The first section of the course was about 3m wide and not very technical, and I moved up to 3rd behind a junior (who it turned out was registered in C) and another rider. After a 180° turn, there was another short section of pavement, which they were taking pretty easy. My legs felt good, and I decided to attack. “When in doubt, lead out,” they say. Sure it was early, but the second-half was narrower and much easier to ride alone. I got about a 30-yard gap, and that was that. After a lap, I had about a 20-second gap on the pair (after the 180° turn on the second lap, the junior rider decided to yell, “I’m going to get you!”, but he only faded from there). One of the nice features of the course (which was actual changed at the last minute, to get around a parked car), was a downhill off-camber turn, on the outside (the side you would go into if you didn’t turn tightly enough) of which was a wall. Good fun. After the race, I was told a guy ran into it head-on during one of the laps. Ugh.

The pair of chasers were caught and passed on the penultimate lap by a single rider, who kept me honest and working for the rest of the race, but he never got within 30 or 45 seconds, in spite of a slip on the run-up on the third lap. Because the finish had been moved, it wasn’t very dramatic – a narrow grass section, and I was passing someone right at the end – but it was a good victory. I gave the mid-Atlantic guys a taste of what it competition is like in New England (my best finish up here was 4th, and about a minute behind the winner at that). Apparently down there B and C races are pretty small, usually not more than 30 starters, compared to to the 50-70 rider fields I’ve competed against up here since I started ‘cross racing last month.

I’m racing the B race in Cheshire, CT next weekend. Hopefully I’ll get see some of you there.

And congrats to Ryan on the U15 win at Sterling!

Hopping the barriers in the MABRA ‘Cross Championship. Photos by Kevin Dillard