Cross Race #1 in the bag

Did my first cross race this weekend, and it was pretty sweet. Was only about a half hour drive, up in Fullerton. It was basically an all grass course, which makes it slow and hard... but since I did the 3/4 which was the last race on the 2nd day of racing, there was a beaten down path in the middle of the course which made it much faster than my trial runs on it before the elite race the day before.

I started in the 2nd row, and was probably about 10th through the first turn and into the first set of barriers. By the end of the first lap I had worked up to 6th or so, feel pretty good. My highest position was 5th, which I held for a lap, despite skidding out around one corner. My big mishap came on a concrete slab before a few stairs. I think that I didn't get my left cleat unclipped all the way before I started to lean over to start running, and both myself and the bike went down. Picked the bike up, but when I put it back down on top of the grass, the rear wheel was locked down. Damn. The canti caliper had been jammed down past the rim, and I needed to nail it back over with my hand. Took only about 15 seconds, but I lost about 10 places in the process. I was pretty bummed, and went real easy the next lap and a half, feeling like the race was all but over, but I managed to find some motivation to suffer a bit more, and over the last two laps made a bunch of places up as people were hurting to come back and secure a 10th.

All in all a good race. I just ordered some better calipers (not that they were really at fault for the rear wheel lockup) but they do suck, despite being orange. Also planning on making some spare tubie wheels into cross wheels if I can do it cheaply enough. They are box section rims, so I might beat them up a bit, but the cross riding out here isn't too terribly tough, so I hope to be able to use them so I can run tubies. I'll post some pictures later on if the photographer uploads them online.....

Next weekend, look out for another top 10.... hopefully.