Hood River DoubleCross: Race Report

Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 in 2008 races

Greetings Readers!

It was not to be my day today, one thing after another building against me like a snowball rolling downhill gaining momentum and volume. I was not my usual stressed self today and was looking so forward to racing a real cx race with the dirt crits behind me. I was excited, tired from no sleep, but enthusiastic all the same. Hood River is a fun course, and today’s course was even better than last year. I was actually smiling about racing today.

I pumped up my tires this morning before I loaded the car and we drove to Hood River. I was worried when we got to the venue and it was already low on air. I pumped it up again and went out to preride the course. Exciting fun course, but there lies a problem with lots of single track, no room to pass and bottle necks. The runups looked fun and challenging all at the same time, there was very little room for error however as a few bridges and some dropoffs could spell trouble for some.

Not sure what happened as we started to move toward the start line to stage, and as soon as the C’s last place rider came through we cramed into a very tight space. I got a very crappy position 3 rows back, I was screwed. Shortly after the sprint at the start there was a tight 180 turn, and that spelled a bottle neck. Soon after the 180 we went through the grass field and had another 180 into an off camber section.

I got a bad start, and was bottled up at the 1st turn, we spread out a little afterwards and I made some ground but by the 2nd 180 into the off camber I was bottled again. Shit, I’m jammed up and the leaders are halfway through the singletrack right now I thought. I was right too. There was 20 riders ahead of me and we were barely through a quarter of the 1st lap. The insuing singletrack bottled me up some more and I tried in vain to find an opening. By the time we were at the runup, which was single file all the way I had to stop running as the guy in front me was whacking me in the head with his rear wheel. I mean I’ve been called a wheel sucker before but this was too much. By the time I hit the start/finish area at the end of the 1st lap my race was over, the leaders are having clear sailing and the gap to me was getting bigger by the minute, I was in the 2nd half of the field.

I kept the pressure on as hell, I’m out here so give right? I took a tight left hander on the inside trying to pass and went down. I only lost a few spots but I noticed something wrong, my front tire was getting soft and I was bottoming out more frequently. I kept racing and came through the start finish area with 3 laps to go. I rode the last 3 laps with basically a flat on my front tire, it wasn’t totally flat but I’d be surprised if I had 15psi in it. I couldn’t corner at all and had to be very careful through the singletrack sections, I just tried to hang on and finish the race, out of options. Every time I tried to lean the bike over it felt like I was going to roll the tubbie off the rim and I was riding on the rim . This was not how I wanted to start my season. That’s racing, you don’t get to write the script, you just give and do what you can do. Right? There are 50 things that can go wrong in a cross race, you just hope to keep them to a minimum.

I’ve a bit of a sick stomach over it tonight as I just hate to suck, or finish in the back half of the race, and today I did. I couldn’t help my tire, nor my start position, but I’m going to have to get more agressive at the starts. If your not at the front of the race, you’ll never see the front of the race again.

I’ve got a week to get a new tubular glued on and be ready for Barlow, hopefully I’ll have a better race. I think I finished somewhere around 25th place. I’m not sure how many riders we had, maybe 45.

I only have a few pics for you, hey I’m riding not playin’ photograher. You’ll notice there’s not a lot of guys around me in some pics, that’s bad, alone off the back with lots of space between me the leaders, and the very back of the race.

2nd wheel here, just crossed a bridge and heading for a runup….