I have graduated by virtue of the clock ticking. I am now eligible for the 55+ category (I'm only 53 as I type this but Race Age is a funky thing in cyclocross. I get to join the other great Tower Racers now instead of just watching them. It also means racing an hour earlier at 8am which I wasn't looking forward to. I had a nice rhythm with the 8:55 start I need to adjust now.
Glenwood is the first stop in this year's Chicago Cyclocross Cup (CCC) series. It is on the campus of Glenwood Academy and has pretty much no elevation. The trickiest part of the course was around a couple trees where roots were exposed and my back tire kept slipping.
It has been dry and the course matched that. By the end of the day the lines were probably pretty burned in which can make it a bit more slick but in the morning it was fine. Not even any dew on the grass.
Before I get into the actual racing I wanted to take a minute to talk about my mentality for the 55+. Being the youngest guy in the category in my mind meant I should be one of the fastest. At least in my cloudy brain that made sense. One thing about racing is that as you get older it is the good racers who keep racing and the others drop out. So you are left with a higher percentage of good racers. So when I started looking at racing points for the guys I'd be racing against my dreams of a wide angle podium started to change to more of a top 15. Let's see how the season goes.
My call up was 4th row based on my points which wasn't great. But the last guy in the 3rd row was lazily walking his bike to the start so I rode past him and snuck into the 3rd row. This turned out to be very fortuitous for the start. It was also good that the slot was near the right side of the row. The first turn was to the left and in my experience it is better/easier to move up on the outside of the corner as most people dive for the inside and it is clogged.
As it turned out the sea parted in front of me at the start and at the hole shot I was in 6th position without having to work too hard. It was a paved start which also made it a bit easier if not potentially sketchy (I've been crashed on paved starts before - can anyone say new helmet?). Now it was a matter of holding my position as best I could. There are only so many places on course where you can pass but also only so many watts available in my legs. I started vaguely counting as riders passed by as well as checking out numbers. If the number is higher than mine then I know I'm falling too far back. By the end of lap 1 my top ten had gone away but wasn't too poorly placed.
Actually, after lap 1 only 2 guys passed me so once I settled in things were relatively good. On the first lap there was a Half Acre Cycling guy who was having issues with the corners so I made a point to get by him. Turns out he is a pretty good racer and I'm not sure what was up. He finally got it together and snuck past on the 3rd or 4th lap (of 5). At the end he was only 3 seconds in front of me. Our friend Mark Misicko was only 9 seconds in front of me. The company you keep....
After doing CX for so many years you get to know people. At least on course. Tim was one of those guys and he passed me on the second lap but I held him close. He's one of the people I mark myself against so I wasn't happy to see him slide away. But later in the race he started to come back. I was getting excited that I might catch him until we were about to hit the berm which was the highpoint of the course (insert laugh here) and saw him pull over with a flat. Ugh.
On the last lap I knew I has someone behind me but not too close. Then, at one point he tried to cut me in a corner. I had taken the inside line and blocked him (A great move if I had known he was coming). But now I knew he was there and my mission was clear. Keep on the gas and keep him back there. I was able to do just that and finished ahead of him by 2 seconds. Again, the company you keep; he is a Cat 3 with almost 100 points better than me on Cross Results. That pushed me to my fastest lap of the race (which is how it is supposed to be).
I ended 17th out of 38. That's top half of the field which makes me pretty happy. It took me a long time to get into the top half of the 45+ category and even then I didn't always stay there.
Tires: PDX
Tire Pressure: about 24 front, 25 rear
Avg HR: 167, max 178 (40 minutes)
It was also fun to race with George and Bob. Wishing Fran was there too. (Read the sign George is holding). Brad will join us for the next race.
Next race is Trek CX Cup in Waterloo WI.
Lap 1: https://youtu.be/0wyeV0_D-7M?si=zC6VSh4KcZsYcEcD
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