Yesterday was spent helping Roger and his Renaissance Cycling team setup for the Veterans Cross a the University of Saint Mary. Roger wanted to design his own course and put in a few special features. As you can see by the photo on the right, Roger was a lot of help. None the less, things went quickly and we were done before noon. I headed home to finish working on the bikes and watch some college football. My Gators got R done, but their win over Vanderbilt was not pretty.
We finished setting up everything in about 3 hours this morning. All there was to do for about 4 hours is wait for my start time at 1:00pm. I almost signed up for the Masters just so I would not have to wait around so long, but I only had my single speed and I really did not want to experience that much pain today. The course was hilly and rough and racing the beast for 50 min was enough.
I took some pictures while I was waiting and cheered on Christoper. Carolynn was not feeling well and opted to sit out this one. Christopher has had about as good a cyclocross season as I. He finished in 6th on the day. Enough to keep him in the points lead, but just barely. Hopefully the weather will be a little cooler for him at the De Stad Cup. I know the course will be a lot less hilly and will suite him better.
Finally it was time for me to race. I did a couple of laps for warm-up and thought I had some good legs. The whistle soon sounded and we were off. I got into the lead, but did not press the pace and soon Steve Songer and Matt Gilhousen went by. I settled behind them until the first barrier section. After I remounted I had some good momentum going up that first hill and shot back into the lead. This lasted about 4 corners as Songer and Matt were back on the next climb. Their pace was fast, but they both slowed down in the new single track down hill section that Roger put in. I went back by them both and into the lead again. Are you guys keeping track. That makes 3 lead changes. Songer got by again and I decided to stick to his wheel. On one of the tight corners coming back up from the little dam, he slid out and I just about t-boned
him. I thought for a second there that he rolled a tire, but that was wishful thinking :-). Here I go again back into the lead. Only this time I didn't to lead because of the windy conditions coming back to the finish. I settled behind Steve and Matt with Theodore close behind in fourth. By this time we opened a good gap on the rest of the single speed field and was actually closing in on the tail end of the Men's Open field. Something happened to Matt's bike during the next couple of laps and he soon fell off the pace. By this time Songer had checked out (he is a machine this season) and that left Theodore and I to decide who would take 2nd on the day. We went back and forth a couple of more times until my legs were gone. Theordore opened up a nice gap on me as I settled in for 3rd on the day. Fun racing today for sure!Here are some pictures that Carolynn and I took today. I hope you all enjoy them. We promise that we will have a good camera for next season :-)
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