CX

It seems likes it's been forever since I posted on LJ. It's been a pretty crazy couple months. I"m a bachelor again this week while Christine is at a conference in New Orleans (and hopefully eating Cajun food).

Cyclocross season has started up, and I've been doing some races again this year. I had a couple 13th place finishes in Breckenridge and Broomfield. This weekend there were a couple of races in Frisco and our team showed up with a bunch of people. I organized a rental house for 9 of us and we had a super nice place for relaxing and hosting a team dinner.

Saturday's race went okay. I had a good starting position in the third row, but my legs felt like garbage. Normally this is a course where I think I would have done well because there was a long climb, but I just didn't have any power. I also just put a new fork on and I was having some trouble with the different handling of the bike. I need to do some work on bike skills this week. I ended up crashing on one of the last corners just long enough for 3 people to pass me and I finished 22nd.

Sunday's race was a whole different story. I was a little worked from the day before, but I was actually feeling decent. My starting position stunk but I was content to race in the middle of the pack. The first lap of a cyclocross race is pretty much mayhem until the group gets all spread out. I had to navigate some early crashes and poor cornering, but that's par for the course when you race anywhere but the front of the group. The shit really hit the fan when my chain came off on a really basic gravel section. I'm not sure why or how the chain came off, but it took me forever to get it back on. By then, I was waaay off the back. My race was over within 2 minutes of starting.

Nothing frustrates me more than equipment failure. I can deal with my poor fitness, but I hate it when gear just doesn't work. By the time I got to the spot on the course where we had our team tent set up, I just pitched my bike under the ropes. Eventually I got back on a soft pedaled for a couple laps while I waited to get lapped so I could tag on to the back of a group and at least get some race speed practice. I never did get lapped, but I did get some good skills practice.

I look forward to redeeming myself in the next race.