This a race report, but mind you, it is a race report from a race I also promoted. Promoting is not easy, it has changed the way I complain about other people’s races (or at the very least it has changed the fervor with which I complain about them). Racing at your own race is a ridiculous endeavor. You’re running around doing a billion things at once, you find a minute (or steal a minute) to suit up and grab your bike, then wait…for something to happen that is totally going to screw up your start.
Back it up. I should bring you up to speed as to what exactly is going on here. My co-promoters and I were putting on a little, grassroots cyclocross race IN MY GRANDMOTHER’S FREAKIN’ YARD running concurrently with nationals. This race is the no-brain-child of me and my buddies Colin, Kevin, and Linnea. In its second year it has become the season ending party for New England Crossers. It is a goofy event with encouraged (if not obligatory) costumes, beer, cupcake, and doughnut feeds. It is a Cross course designed by mountain bikers so of course it has a berm and hoppable barriers. Wait, now I’m lapsing into a report about the race not actually reporting on my feeble attempt to race it which is what I came over here to do today. If you want to read a report about the race, check out Cyclocross Magazine, if you want to read my report about attempting to race, keep reading
So there I am, on the mic, doing my best to do a horrible job of announcing the races. Lapsing between Phil Liggett and Richard Fries impressions as Danzig blares on the speakers behind me (hey, my race, my almost-no-rules, my ipod) I do the last call to staging for my own race, the single speed race at noon. I run to the car to grab my bike which is still on the roof rack. I ride it to the start line where I’m supposed to be “staging the riders by Crossresults.com rankings.” Then I realize that my seat-post is about four inches too low because the last time I rode my bike was on a BMX pumptrack. I sprint back to the car, run into my buddy Uri from IBC and steal his multi-tool and sprint back to the line. I basically get up to the front (as uber-volunteer I had great seeding) and say “OK 217 to…what number am I? Oh, 221. Ya…217 to 221 on the front row. Everyone else…sort yourselves out.”
We get the whistle and it’s mayhem. It’s a 50 man field, five across the start chute (we had 100 in the 4’s, yikes!) and dudes are running up the rows of the vegetable garden to the right, hurdling frozen heads of cabbage, trying to find themselves in better position. I have no idea how, but I wound up on Mike Rowell’s wheel (he would do the double that day and get 3rd in the Elites) in 2nd spot going into the hole shot. After one lap we were kind of in no man’s land, and I’m turning around going “what the hell is going on back there? What the hell am I doing up here?” I knew badness was imminent.
The course was shockingly good, When we’d gone out to do course prep on Friday we were confronted with ice and snow and muddy tractor-torn ruts. Now the course was entirely different, it had been tracked in by the 100s of riders who had ridden it already that day. There was actually mud in some spots and the rest of it was just fun as hell. I really couldn’t believe it. You could rail the corners and if you blew it, you simply slid off into deep snow. I did lay it down on one icy corner, total yard-sale. It was more fun than painful.
A few laps in, Alec Donahue (winner of the Elite race later in the day) came blowing by me in the back field section straightaway like I was being lapped (he never would catch Mike R.). I dropped to third.
I was riding the Ferrous (the Superfly is side-lined with a buggered air-shaft in its Fox Fork) which had been gathering dust for a couple weeks. Last time I rode it, I probably put about 22 Psi in the tires…then they sat for two weeks. Needless to say, the tires were a little squooshy, a little crazy in the corners, but man they were hooking up in the snow! Until I burped the rear in a corner. And then burped it again. And then hopped one of the barriers and came down solidly on nothing but rim — THUNK! I had about a lap and a half to go, Matt Myette from Zanconato racing was bearing down on me, I was washing out in the corners horribly. By the time I was rounding the big tree in the middle of the course I was all out of air and my rear tire was spinning traction-lessly on the uphills.
It couldn’t have happened at a more convenient time, I ducked the tape, went back over to the PA, got on the mic, grabbed a beer and had the distinct pleasure of heckling myself and the riders in my own race.
My only regret is that my race went as well as it did while it lasted. I got all oddly semi-serious and didn’t slow down to smell the Hupcakes (a cupcake made by Hup United) and take beer feeds.
On a side, promoter, Fisher-love type note, I had a great time announcing while Team Psycho rider Alec Petro rode away with the Cat 3 win on his Superfly. It was so hard not to show bias. I don’t really think I pulled it off.
“The Ice Weasels should remain a keg party where a cross race and bike derby breaks out!”
Thanks to Jason WG and Uri for the Photos.
Thom,
Thanks for the writeup. Was thinking about the GF Crew thing…Im looking at deepening my bike stable to get the Superfly 100. How does one become a member of the GF Crew and is there any benefit in terms of getting bikes cheaper, gear etc??
Good seeing you last weekend and thanks for puttig the race together. It was well run and alot of fun.
Best, Alec