USGP Race #6 / Portland Oregon

Admittedly I can't report on what the pros did, but I can report that the course was well designed and fun. I wasn't really feeling it today, but I had fun. There were lots of little hills, areas with long straight aways and then areas where there were numerous twists and turns. My race was the first race but the course was not fresh. The majority of it had been well worn by the previous day's races, which I missed unfortunately. The course diverted from yesterday course in several areas adding some element of the short track mtb course. This added a couple of short steep climbs and descents. It also went through the woods in a couple of spots that were different as well. There were several pretty good mud puddles. The hills we pretty slick, you needed momentum to make it up most of them. Otherwise it was faster just to run up them.

I took a video of the juniors and womens race that was right after mine. You can see that it was what you would expect from Portland cyclocross.


I finished near the back, like I said I wasn't really feeling it today. I tried to push it a couple of times, but I found myself not able to keep up the normal effort that I am used to. I am going to blame my kids and wife for that--they have all been sick and so perhaps I am not up to snuff either. Also, at the end of the final lap I broke my crank arm on the driveside. I elt something give as I went to try and catch one guy the last 1/4 of a mile. THe pedal didn't come off, but I was worried at the time that I had broke my pedal again. Nope just the crank. the aluminum insert inside the crank arm broke loose of the carbon that surrounds it. It is a FSA K Force Isis crankset. It doesn' have tons of use either, and I haven't bashed it. Whatever, it will get warrantied.


If there are more pics up of me I might pick one up and post it later.

Hillsboro Cyclocross Race

First, a few pictures...






The race was held at Hillsboro Stadium. Well, not so much in the stadium as in the fields and parking lot surrounding the stadium. It had been raining for 3 or 4 days straight and also the day of the race. My race time was about 10am and it was still at best in the mid-40's. Add the fact that by race time I had been standing in the cold with nothing more than my cycling shorts Craft no-sleeve thermal, shortsleeve jersey and arm warms, and a light semi-waterproof shell and you can see that I was miserable waiting at the starting line. Again, we all get there early so that we don't have to start at the back. My race time is composed of two divisions, open C's and Master C's 35+. I race the master C's. There is only one class slower than our field, the Beginner class, which starts an hour earlier.

By our race time, the course had already been beaten up pretty bad between the 130 racers in the 9am race and everyone who had pre-ridden the course to get an idea of what it was like. I pre-rode the course, not that it made any difference, becuase by the time my race started the course had changed with all the racers riding on it. I pre-rode it in hopes of warming up a bit, but by the time the race started I was freezing. However, about 3/4 of a lap into it I wasn't feeling cold anymore.

The race started on asphalt and then to hard pack gravel/dirt and then to sloppy peanut butter like mud. It was not meant to be a running area but for most of us, if not everyone, it was faster to run that 50 yards than to ride through it. Then back to a fast hard pack double wide dirt path over a double barracade and then back to the fast hard pack again. Then the second half of the course was pretty tough. It took me two laps to figure out the route to take on the first of the next peanut butter sections and the feel confident enough to go in to it fast enough to hold my momentum. Without momentum riding some spot would have been either very difficult or impossible. Later after a couple of mud puddles or mud soup sections there was a slight uphill that was just too difficult to ride. Maybe the A's and B's could ride it, but I didn't see one person in our race do it. The second picture above is from this section.

Later after some tough riding we had to ride back down this same area. That was fun. While others were perhaps conservative in their riding of this area, I just hammered though it. I am sure that many attacked this section as well, but nevertheless it was a spot where I could make up time on those around me. I don't worry about falling when it is really sloppy. The mud is soft enough to dampen a hard landing, and I have found that if you are making good speed your forward momentum can often bail you out of a bad line or over a hidden rock or hole. On the second lap I passed three guys in this section and felt pretty dang good about it. the fact that 2 of them passed me again once we were back on to asphalt didn't really matter.

My glasses proofed to me useless after the first lap or so. I chucked them to the side during the second lap at a spot where I could hopefully find them after then race (I did get them back). I just couldn't see much with all of the mud. Plus some mud would find its way somehow inside my glasses which made it as bad as if I didn't have them on anyway. Without the glasses on the fast sections I just tried to squint as to make the space where my eyes were vulnerable as small as possible.

I don't have my result yet, but I am sure that it was around the same that I always place. I had a bunch of fun. When I got back home I was surprised all the places that I had mud packed. It took quite a while to shower.

Below is a few pics of my bike the morning after before I cleaned it. I should have done it when I was spraying out my clothes but didn't feel like messing with it. Click on a pic for a more detail image. Also note the most of the mud was washed off by the rain on the car ride home. Yes, I wrote most of the mud was actually aready washed off.






UPDATE: preliminary results show that I was 48th out of 77 finishers plus 7 DNF's. Not bad for me.

Estacada Cyclocross Race

Ahh cyclocross...the only way that I can workout for only 45 minutes and burn almost a 1000 calories. My average heart rate during the race was 182 with a max of 192 and I burned 975 calories according to Polar HRM. Total race time was 45 minutes and change.

Pics like this make me realize I have a good 20-30 pounds I could lose. Anyway...

I had looked at the preliminary results yesterday and was happy, very happy with the results. I placed 52nd out of 90. Percentile-wise, that was my best Master C placement ever. Yippee! All my training and hard work was starting to pay dividends.

Forward one day later.

The official results, which have never varied more than a couple of places for me in the past moved me and others that finished with me down quite a bit. Apparently over a dozen people did not have all of their laps counted during the race. In the preliminary results they were shown with 3 laps when in actuality they had finished 4. That meant I really placed 66th out of 89 (one person DNF'd that would have been 90th).

So this is not much better than other weeks. But it was better. Of the three races this year I have placed at the .833 (100/120), then .786 (77/98), and now .741 (66/89). The closer I get to zero the closer I am to the front. So I guess I just need to be patient and keep working at it.

As far as the race itself, it was pretty nice. Kind of muddy, but not at all sloppy. In past years it has been marshy in some areas. There is a bowl or depression that they make us go in and out of. The pic is climbing out of the bowl. It was the last lap and I was kind of tired but I didn't want to run up instead of riding. About half of the guys I saw were running up instead of riding. It was not necessarily faster to ride, but I didn't feel like getting off the bike if I didn't have to. There was another part where we had to climb out of the bowl, but there it was much more difficult and 95% of the people I saw were running up it. Many of those who did ride up it had mountain bikes or at least mountain bike gearing.




Here are some pics of one slippery spot.



I, of course, had no problem with it. I may be slow but I have some skills when it is slick, steep or muddy. The guy in front of me in the pic below lost it about a half-second after this was taken.

Same place on another lap...

Barton Park Cyclocross

This was my first race is the past 3 weeks. 2 weeks ago I missed the race because I was too stressed out to race. I just wasn't in the mood to suffer in the wind and the rain. A week ago I bailed out because I didn't feel like making the drive or spending the money. But, the planets aligned and I decided to make a go of it today.

The weather was great. Kind of cold but pretty good considering. I had been training pretty well for the past couple of weeks and I think it has helped. Also, I changed my bike setup a bit, and that helped out too. For some reason we have had excellent weather lately here. There were only a couple of mud patches on the course which made for a fast race. I still suffer on the run ups. The run ups were a couple of hills that were pretty steep, at least they seemed that way during the race. Sort of like running up a steep set of stair, only strewn with rocks and dirt instead of stairs. My bulk hurts me on those. I try to run up them, but I just don't have the power to do that yet lap after lap. Some laps I would run up most of the way and some I just walked up. At least the last lap I ran up both. Anyway things went pretty well. I was 75th out of 98 in my class, which is lower than I had thought I would do, but considering that about 20 or so departed for the new Clydesdale class, I consider that I did passably well. I know that I lost about 15 to 20 places because of my slowness on the run ups--which are proportionally a small part of the 2.25 mile course.

I did do my 1st front wheel-wheelie in a long time though. There was a little mulch pile that we had to go over. I was pretty well packed down and because it came at the end of a fast asphalt section there were a few wrecks. I just plain spaced-out for a bit and didn't use my body to help roll over the back side. As a result of my brain-fart I almost went over the bars when the mulch pile tossed the back wheel up. I rode on my front wheel for about 10 feet. Kind of scarey, but I never felt like I was going to go down. On the next lap the guy right behind me went down hard on that same spot. I heard a yell and then an "umph" as he hit the ground. I looked back and saw out of the corner of my eye that he was down but appeared to be getting up. I didn't slow down, but if he was hurt bad there are spectators around that can lend a hand.

For now I have made my peace with my 75th place in the race. At least I am not in the back 10% to 20% of the Beginner Race like I was two years ago. I figure I would be in the top quarter of the Beginner race these days. Being in Master C's I at least feel I am not sandbagging.

Below are some pictures borrowed from bikeportland.org.



I really wish that I could get back on the bike as efficiently as this guy riding for Vanilla. Geesh...


Yeah it hurts and he is still smiling....