ZenJen Tillmanator Blog: Shimano NEPCX - NBX Gran Prix of Cyclo-cross (Aka: the Rhode Island Cyclcross Trip)

Friday 11/30:   Leaving Town.

Our plan was to leave my house by 7p, 8 at the latest, on Friday evening after work.   The Element was packed full of stuff: 4 bikes, 2 inside/ 2 outside.   2 trainers, 2 trainer wheels, 2 coolers, 2 bag of clothes, water, a Yakima roof rack stuff with even more overflow stuff (chairs, tent, stuff stuff and more stuff). Oh and throw in a new Crux frame to be delivered to one of my C3 team-mates. Yeah, we had plenty of room! Ha!

Well, we managed to get good ole' Ellie (element) packed and left Baltimore by 7:30P.   :-)   The drive was more/less uneventful. I drove the first leg up through a rest stop near Newark and AT took 2nd shift. Needless to say by midnight, we were both loopy and tired ready to get to the hotel.

Lucky we had that sugar stop at the 24 hour CVS. We arrived Warwick, Rhode Island around 1:30A and schlepped most of the stuff up to the hotel room.   Didn't take us long to totally pass out. Race day was only a few hours away.

Saturday 12/01:   Race Day #1

First the weather. Always amusing that the weather forecast is projecting decent weather all week and then we get close to race day and everything shifts.   Yeah, well at least we didn't have a large green blob on radar map surrounding the race site like we did for Gloucester.

Weather: high 30's into 40's. Rain, mostly drizzly, all night friday and into Saturday morning. By late morning we had large snow flakes. Yeah it was freaking cold.

The course:

Uphill start into a gravel laced slight right hand turn into a pine forest.
Some nice roots which were spray painted orange throughout the first stretch as well as many other stretches on the course.
A fly-over into a fast grassy straightaway
Natural barriers of two fallen trees, very cool
More roots
more Turns
a long, hard sand beach run (ouch!)
sand filled cleats :)
More barriers
more turns with roots and sand
rinse N repeat at heart attack speed

Anyway, you get a sense of the day 1 course. It freaking hurt. The group quickly spread out after the start and gaps emerged. It was a fight to get up to the wheel of the "next" rider in front, make a pass, and do it again. The hardest part for me was def the long beach run and the straights. My competition def had more power in the straights then technique in the turns and technical sections ---- at least the competition in the back of the pack. I raced hard. Felt good. Solid. But not great, I wanted a better performance for day 2.

Finished 23rd out of 33 riders.   LVG and Arley both rocked the podium, 1st and 3rd.

Saturday 12/01:   Race Day Evening, almost like a normal Saturday night minus my favorite T

Dinner out and a movie. We had dinner at a cool vegetarian restaurant then hit the local movie theater to see Anna Karenina. I still have that movie music stuck in my head. Anyway, it was nice having a relaxing evening after a hard day racing. Only thing missing was my Tracy. But it was super nice just to lay low.   Funny when we got back to the hotel, some other racers were huddled in the hallway on benches stolen from the lobby area drinking beer and kicking back.   Funny, in another time, I would have been guzzling back a few brews but anymore I just want to keep the bod clear and free.   Good stuff though --- we all have our ways to chill and relax. This time I chose food, a movie, conversation and ZZZZzzzzz's. :)

Sunday 12/02:   Race Day #2

Slept wicked hard Saturday night and woke kind of late. 8A. Best part of the morning was a coffee delivery. Serious friends deliver coffee to waking Jen's. Seriously, think that for me cements friendship for life. def.

Weather: today. Warm by comparison. 50s. Gray skies but the sun was trying to peek out from time to time.

The course:   very similar to day 1 but take away the long grassy straightaway near the start and add a 2nd technical sand section.   Very mountain-biker-esque IMO.   Quick, punchy climb into a sandy descent right hander with thicker sand.   You could easily ride the punchy climb if you were powering (the men rolled that hill so fast, it was awesome). There was one good rutted line down into the 2nd sand section and if you did it right you could be off the bike clean and pushing the bike as you quickly navigated right back up the upward right hand 180 degree turn back up the hill. That last bit pushing the bike up to the dirt flat was tough. Short section but def took some mega energy.

The start: The start effin sucked. Yeah, just have to say it like that.   2nd to last row start.   Lined up behind AT and when whistle blew, things just didn't go well for our small Baltimore crew. Girl in front of AT fudged her start. AT hit her wheel. Everyone beside me and in front of me/us proceeded forward while we didn't. It could have been worse, a crash at the start.   That happened on day 1 and I just escaped it... so guess this was not so bad.

...And as we said later:   we were just giving that field a nice 5 second head start. Yeah, why not?!! Just go ahead, we'll catch up.

Day 2 Start. Challenges and Tough Times started at the whistle. :-/

Well. That was the start. It sucked.   But we were fueled by anger and proceeded to claw and fight to reclaim spots.   Think AT and I both would agree it was some of our fiercest most aggressive racing.   In 'cross, things go wrong. Guess you can always count on something to fail.

And in a split nano-second, you're either the one making the move or the one reacting to the move.
Think I learned I can make serious moves.   Minus the one encounter where I ran right into the tape after making an aggressive move over the barriers (giving that damn field another few seconds, yeah why not? geez!), I rode hard. I chose my moves wisely minus the 1.   I attacked into corners and took position.   I accelerated hard to get out ahead of other racers right before technical sections where I knew I could ride clean and potentially gain time on them. Small victories in a trying day. I'll take small victories. :-)

Despite the obstacles of the day, I finished 25th out of 34 riders. I had to fight hard and from the DFL (dead effin last as AT said it) position at the start.

I love the sport.   It brings butterflies, anger, frustration, euphoria, happiness, fatigue, soreness, bruises, smiles, laughs, chills. It brings a bunch of crazy people together to race their bikes on grass, mud, sand, and road for 40 minutes.

While Rhode Island was not my best race, it was def one where I fought hard. It was def a challenging day of racing. Hard Course. Solid competition. And as always, I learned a lot once. These big UCI races def accelerate the learning curve for sure.