Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Best of Times - The Worst of Times. The Rockville CX Weekend


This weekend I raced the Rockville cross. It went down only 30 mins. from my place so of course I was going to be supporting my home town race. Promoter Zach Adams did a great job both days of setting up the course and keeping it interesting for the racers. Check out his site here.

Day one started out great. I had a good start (for me anyways) and was picking some great lines through the course. However on the last lap I picked up a thorn and the rear tire was slowly losing air. Fortunately I was able to make it back to the finish without having to pit. The bike and me were really in sync (not quite like Granogue Day 2 but close enough) and we were really working well together. So it was the best of times.

Day 2 didn't start out so well. First I realized that I forgot my wallet and racing license. Not a big deal - I was able to pull my license up on the USAC website. Sunday's course was much technical and I just couldn't figure it out. On top of that the bike seemed to be fighting me all day and we were clearly not working well together. My warm-up/practice laps did not go well so before I even took the line I had resigned myself to staying in the back and just trying to gain some experience. Looking over the wounds from the weekend I discovered that I lost a chainring bolt. Not a regular one, but a single ring chainring bolt for which I now must buy set of 5 and hope they arrive by Friday for Beacon Cross on Saturday. Yes - day 2 was the worst of the times.

But enough negative. As always, the phenomenal Joe Mallis was on the scene on day 1 shooting "flippin' sweet" photos of us (The photo in this post is courtesy of him). Click here for the link to his gallery. I don't know how he does it, but he makes me look like I actually know what I'm doing :-)! Joe is a great photographer and even nicer guy to talk to when I run into him at various races around the Mid-Atlantic region. Chappeau Joe!

It's hard to believe that Beacon Cross means the end of month two of my season and only 5 weeks until I'm on the plane to Portland/Bend for some great pacific northwest racing. Now I just wish we would get some rain here on the east for some real 'cross weather. That's all for now - I got a bike to clean/fix!

Thanks for reading!
Captain Crunch

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About Me

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I got my name from a friend while playing a video game a long time ago and it just stuck. As if you couldn't tell from the picture I am a huge cycling nut, always looking for something harder.