Sunday, November 26, 2006

Cross Nonsense

Why do I keep tormenting myself? I went out to the last 'normal' KissCross race today. The course did not favor me; lot of pavement and not much technical riding. I was sitting ok at the end of the first lap, somewhere in the top 15. At the second set of barriers, right in front of all the spectators, I managed to slip off my pedal during the dismount and crash hard. Both levers were twisted on the bar and packed with mud, as I had been hard on the brakes coming up to the barriers. It was a total rookie mistake.

I managed to get the front brakes working, but the rears were rubbing bad. After fussing with them for a few minutes, I just unhooked the brakes and rode without them. I really wanted to quite, but I quite the last cross race and felt like crap afterwards. So I put my head down, and decided to do whatever it took not to come in DFL or DNF.

In the end, I achieved my goal. I think I passed four people, including one guy on a mountain bike that I beat right at the line.

Since this was the last race of the season, Rick gives away a bunch of schwag. I scored big-time; a Velocity cross/29er wheelset and some Kenda CX tires! That more than made up for the flat tire I had to change...on my car! Thanks to Nate and Scott for the help fixing that flat.

It is looking more and more like I will head over to Waterford this coming weekend for the cross race. I'm gonna try and bluff my way into the A race, even thought I don't have any kind of race license. A bunch of people took pictures at the race today; if I can track them down I'll link to them or post them here.

In other news: Vote over at the Snob's site and check out the latest info on Trans-Iowa 3.

2 comments:

Endurosnob said...

Way to hang tough.

Anonymous said...

My wife and I were at the cross race today. We missed your crash but did you see messing with your levers. I thought it was cool that you kept riding even when you were virtually riding alone for a while. Nice Job! Good luck next week in Waterford.