Nothing But SSCX

Mansfield Hollow SSCX Race

Last weekend was yet another weekend double single-speed cyclocross. Not the first of the season certainly not the last of the season. However, on Saturday at least there was something new, a pair of races separated by a couple hundred miles, each having a SSCX category and each part of the Zanconato SSCX series. Throughout the week we were trying to decide where to go and which race to do. Both races were excellent venues and hosted by really good folks.

In the end, we chose the race that appeared to have a larger concentration of the crew that had been racing all year, because you know, we wanted to race against people, and also chose the event that was slightly more convenient for us. That was the Mansfield Hollow race in Mansfield, CT. It is one of the original and longest running cyclocross races in New England and even so, we had never participated in the race. It was with some excitement that we loaded up and made the trip south on Saturday.

The event was easy to get to and took about an hour and half to drive. The venue was at a dam and recreational area and so the parking was very convenient and ample. The day was gorgeous, literally perfect for cyclocross racing, dry and sunny with the temperature in the high 50's. A great fall day in general. The course itself had a large mix of just about everything. Not terribly technical but not a grass crit by and stretch. There were two sets of barriers and a run-up that required dismounts, at least on the single-speeds. There was also a stretch of sand and a short uptick at the end that I also could not clean, forcing another dismount. The telephone pole however was a fairly easy hop so I was able to stay on for that. The uphills were enough to make the legs groan with the slightly high gear I was running, but again, nothing too bad. A good mix of flat and fast, swoopy turns, hard corners, elevation change and technical features to really keep it interesting.



We had a good turnout with many of the normal cast like Doug, G, Jeff, Matt, Chris, Royce from the MTB SS darkside and a bunch of other folks as well. There were also a few women so Cathy had folks to race as well. Just before the start of the race, Jeff, who had driven out from NY with his wife Katina and who were staying with us Saturday night, came walking back to the start pushing his bike, with his chain in his hand. Bad sign. I yelled to him to grab Cathy's old SSCX off the rack on the van and race that. We snagged the bike and raised the saddle and he was set, minutes before the start.

The start was a bit of a melee with a combo of lots of fresh legs, adrenaline and a long straight away into a steep up-slope that then went cross-slope with only 16" of trail to ride on. I cut across the slope and pinched Chris, sorry, but managed to get into line. As always Doug was on the front drilling it. I was back a few but by the barriers managed to sit in third behind Gewilli, who was racing really well. About a half lap in Doug was gaining a bit of distance so I came around G and started chasing. It took forever to pull close and I was struggling to close the gap down. I'd gain in certain places and loose in others. On the next to last lap Doug had a slight bobble in the sand which allowed me to hitch onto him. From there I just maintained until we got to the starting straight and I went to the front. I hit it hard but Doug wasn't going anywhere. The two of us rode the final lap hard and I never had more than a few seconds gap to the end. Another close one and battle well fought. G rounded the podium for third in a great event.

SSCX High and Mighty Podium Salute

Cathy had a good race as well getting second behind Katina and finishing ahead of Allison in yet another tough battle. The single-speed series is heating up for sure.

MRC SSCX Race

The following day was the local, Minuteman Road Club cyclocross race in Lancaster, MA. This event was located only 25 miles from home at the Bolton fairgrounds. This had been the venue for the race for the past few years and has come to be a favorite. Naturally, after being treated to stellar weather and conditions for the Saturday race, the weather promptly changed and it started raining. The rain was hard and steady during the night and continued into Sunday morning. Not the best of conditions but it could be worse.

Katina and Jeff had stayed with us Saturday night and we had gotten Jeff's new single-speed squared away for the Sunday race. Given the rain, Katina who had planned to do two races decided to do only one and so we headed over to the venue a little later than originally planned. This gave the weather some time and luckily the rain mostly stopped by the time we had arrived. The SSCX event was as usual, the last event of the day. This would give us ample time to see the course conditions change and hopefully improve dramatically.

As luck would have it, the improvements were somewhat less than dramatic. In fact, they may have even gotten worse as the side-slopes lost much of their grass cover from previous races. What I can say for sure is that it got really slick out there by the time we were set to go. The event drew a big crowd for the SSCX race with most all of the normal crowd being in attendance. No breaks today. Curtis was back from racing SSCX in Maine the day before, and getting the win convincingly. Abel was also back from Maine as were a couple of the women. Matt fulfilled his birthday party obligations the day before so joined us on the line as well. Pretty much a full field of everyone with a single-speed CX bike.

The start was chaos as the whistle came while we were still getting side instructions from Doug about the course. This was all good but a poor clip-in meant I hit the corkscrew climb up Mt Krumpett well back of the leaders. Curtis was charging hard as was about everyone else. It was a flurry of slipping and sliding and trying to make forward progress as a mass. Eventually we started descending and it got sketchy. Dough hit the deck and slid into the tape. Steve H. relinquished his role as announcer, threw together a dedicated SSCX bike from spit and bailing twine not to mentioned old worn out parts of despair and jumped into the race. I found myself right behind Steve who was not far behind Curtis. I encouraged Steve to close the gap and he did his darned best to do so.

Eventually I decided sending a boy to do a man's job was the wrong ploy so I relinquished young Steve from the front of the bust and grabbed the wheel, instructing him to grab mine. We charged forward trying to reel back in a running Curtis. Eventually I settled in and started riding steadily and conservatively rather than just riding hard and was able make up some ground. You see, in slick conditions like that you needed to apply steady even pressure and ride within the limits. What that meant for me was that I had little opportunity to lay down the power. Unfortunately Steve was lost somewhere in the translation.I tried some moves a couple of times but was unable to shake Curtis one bit. He also seemed to have somewhat better traction than I, especially on the side slope slip and slide sections.

On the last lap I kept Curtis in check and gained a bunch of space I'd lost due to the traction issues I was having by hopping the uphill mini-barrier. In one of the few power sections I jumped around a went hard, only to over cook the next corner. Another big effort to thwart a counter attack on the next dry section and some more over-excited handling failures. On the last clear straight before the side-hills to the far end of the course, Curtis came by me. I was able to get back to him on the slow ups but it was pretty much cast. There was no place clear enough to make a move and despite feeble attempts, I made up no ground on Curtis, who was easily able to take the win.

Defeat, thou are such a thick and bitter pill to swallow. Not really, actually. As much as I like to win it more important to have fun and I had fun and got to race my bike for real. That is why I enjoy the SSCX series so much, real racing, real fun and real good folks.

Cathy had another solid race and once again found herself on the High and Mighty podium, the same cast in fact as the previous day, save a slight order change with Allison beating Cathy out for 2nd. Good times, thanks so much for all of the effort and thanks for reading.

The Big Show

I'm still way behind on race reports. Actually, I've been attempting to do fewer stock race reports as they tend to be a little wordy and a little dry. That said, my luck has been reasonably good the past couple of weeks in terms of setting a plan and then acting on it. I feel compelled to pull some sort of report together outlining those details. For those who know me I tend to ride by instinct and when the whistle blows my brain shuts off and the instinct tends to be flight, to escape. Odd, I wonder what that says about me on a larger scale? Anyhow, that instinct serves me well often, especially on the MTB, but at times ignoring any real strategy is problematic on the cross bike. Lets not even talk about how I make out on the road.

So this season I've tried to get a little bit more serious as I know that the men I'm racing are not only really strong but really crafty. I can't just ride on the front and hammer and expect them to fall away. As such I have tried to form alliances and work with people to try and either chase other rides down or split an existing group up, effectively thinning the herd and improving each of our chances in the end. I must admit that this has been a very useful tool to add to arsenal, actually thinking and planning when racing that is. Who would have guessed?

Gran Prix of Gloucester

A couple weeks ago at Gloucester I was presented with some interesting challenges that required some planning. Gloucester is one of the biggest races in the country and the biggest in New England. It truly is the big stage and everyone wants to bring their best out for the event. I've always done abnormally well at Gloucester. Not sure why but it must suit me. My best result there in the past was in 2009 when conditions were horrible. In reality I usually excel in poor conditions so it was with great enthusiasm that I met the weather forecasts calling for rain. They did not let us down either and the course on Saturday was wet and muddy, which I clearly viewed as good for me.

The competition was stiff and we had a full field of a hundred or so on the line. I was treated to a front row spot and was determined to use it to my advantage. I'd been working on my starts and I had it pegged this time around. I was top three in the first corner and kept on the gas. Instantly I could see Paul was trying to get away but eventually he backed off a bit and we traded spots. Unfortunately I could see that I didn't have the gas to run away either so rotated back, happy to follow. More trades between Eric, Jeff, Mark, then Paul went back out front for good. A small mishap derailed a move by Eric and it was Jeff and I in pursuit of Paul.

The course was slick but Jeff and I worked together managing to get some space on the field while maintaining the gap to Paul, who spent almost the entire race ahead solo. By the final lap I went to the front and tried to claw some distance back on Paul but made little headway. On the finish straight I opened the sprint as soon as I hit the pavement knowing Jeff was right them and not wanting him to get me. This closed the gap to Paul to within a small handful of seconds and gave me room to breath on Jeff. I was disappointed that I hadn't worked a little harder, a little sooner by happy with the result. Cathy greeted me with massive enthusiasm and was even more excited than I was.

The next day I didn't feel all that great. The legs were tired as was my back. I've come top find though that this isn't any indication of the race I will have and in fact, it is often the opposite of what one would expect. On the line another prime starting spot and conditions that were even worse than day 1 combined with an even tougher course technically had me determined. I managed my best start ever getting the hole-shot with what seemed like far too little effort. From there I was in a MTB race, in terms of the tactics. Get out front, check. Stay out front, check.

And luckily that was what happened and how it played. I raced hard and as clean as I could not taking extra risks and putting in the hard digs where they made sense. My running and scrambling up the run-ups and stairs was as good as I'd ever done, possibly better. The bike handling seemed sloppy in places and I really used too much brake but it kept me upright and making forward progress. In the end I managed to stay out front and maintain the gap, a wholly surreal experience for me in a very magical place when it come to cyclocross racing. This time it sunk in. The announcements I'd heard during the race about this being the ride of my career (do I actually have a career?) and the cheers and encouragement of my cyclocross friends and family. I didn't want the moment to end and savored it as long as possible.

Providence Festival of Cyclocross

Last weekend was my return to Providence after a couple of years on hiatus from the venue. I've always liked the course but never did super well there and was always put off by the parking and logistics. That said, this is the second largest event ion New England and was sure to garner some stiff competition and another large field, giving more opportunity to work the skills. I wasn't certain what to expect, performance wise and was somewhat unsure if the previous weekend had been a fluke. Fortunately, there was certain to find out.

It had been a long block of pretty intense racing, with the five back to back weekends of racing both days coupled with some good training during the weekdays. As such, I'd decided to take it a little easy after Gloucester and do straight recovery for a few days, a moderate SS MTB ride on Thursday then some quick openers on Saturday. The result I hoped would have me feeling a little better and ready to do for the weekend. Again I felt OK but not stellar come Saturday morning. Not necessarily a bad thing though. At the event we spent time socializing and catching up with friends not sens since the previous weekend. We also cheered others in other races while sneaking in a few laps on the course as well. Cathy decided to take the weekend off so we were under no big time constraints as we arrived early in order to secure parking.

As race hour approached, the temperature steadily climbed into to 80's with a strong sun ever present in the sky as well. That was going to be a factor. On the line I managed a nice front row start and soon we were off, frantically but successfully finding the pedal and get the clip-in then sprinting as hard as possible up the starting straight. I secured good position when we hit the grass in the top few. The race eventually pared down at the front and before too long it was Sam and I battling head to head with John chasing. If this sounds familiar, as it did to me, it may be because I already wrote about this race here, but forgot until just now. Go look there for more detail but the synopsis was that it went really, really well and I was lucky the whole day.

Day two of Providence started much like day one, save for the weather. It was significantly cooler and initially had me thinking it would be a long sleeve type of day. That notion went out the door as game time approached and short sleeves it would be. On the line it was abundantly clear that one man was not going to be content with anything other than the top spot on the podium. Sam was doing laps in the starting grid while the rest of us were chatting and waiting for the start. Much of the chat centered around our good friend Mark getting waffled into the ground the day before in what was descried as an overly aggressive move by a racer from outside of New England, Andy.

Off the line the pace was furious and I found many people were pushing really hard to get to the front. I hit the grass in about tenth spot after a virtual fist-fight for position. Nobody was giving anything up so the battle for position was fierce. I managed to slowly pick up spots as people blew up from the ragged pace and the leader, none other than Sam, didn't manage to pry much of a gap open. Similar to the day before, a lead group of about five formed including Sam, Mark, Don, Andy and myself. It became clear that Sam and I were feeling the best and as such took turns trying to break things up. It worked slowly but eventually it was Sam, myself and Andy who, try as we might, we could not seem to shake.

I was bound and determined not to have a three man sprint going at the finish as I'm not a great tactical sprinter, so resigned myself to strategy. When Sam to a good solid turn on the front with about 1.5 laps to go, I let a gap open. It was easy really, given that I was tired and being able to justify it as a tactical move, being lazy that is, well heck, I can do that. The gap opened a bit and sure enough, Andy came by and gave chase. I stuck onto the back of him and followed around as he worked hard to try and close on Sam. When we hit the pavement I sat on a bit and could see that the effort had taken a toll, at which I attacked as furiously as I could looking past him and up the road at Sam. The move worked and when I came around by the pits Cathy reaffirmed that I had a gap. Success.

I emphasize this as success in my mind partly because that simple act of tactics signified that I'd attained the goal I set out for. Not rocket science but still, for me it was important. From there I gave chase as hard as possible but it was a foregone conclusion as Sam had punched out. His resolve was firm and although I pulled it back to a hand-full of seconds by the end of the race, Sam took the win in great and decisive fashion. Still a good day and oddly enough, I felt good in trying to somehow vindicate Mark for his misfortune the day before. After the race, as we were waiting for the podium I met Andy and his young kids, who had done the kids race earlier and were very excited about it. I realized that he is just a middle aged guy with a life and family, out there trying his best, the same as the rest of us. Things get crazy some times and accidents happen. Although things may seem blatant from one perspective, they may not actually be so. At least, I truly hope that is the case.

Another great weekend capping two incredible weekends in a row, following a stellar weekend before that. Hell, who am I kidding. It's all been good and in truth, always is. Off for some lower key but just as fun SSCX this weekend. Have fun and thanks for reading.

Day 285

I'd sort of lost track recently of where we are in the year in terms of numbers of days. It turns out that today is the 282nd day of the year, which means that assuming I make it to cross practice tonight, it will be my 285th consecutive day of riding, having started the streak on December 28th.

At this point riding the bike is just a part of the day, not that it was really any different than that before the streak. I must admit, these cool fall days are really making me look forward to some snow this winter and being able to hit the skinny ski and snowshoes. That said, I've been thinking more and more about ditching the sleds, which I absolutely hate to do because I love riding but find it hard to justify, and getting a pair of snow-bikes in their place.

We will see what happens but I can't argue with the fact that the increased time on the bike is helping the results. I think that and a more focused and targeted ride and race schedule all year has been huge. I'm even wondering if the downturn late summer might not have been OK as well as it forced me to pare down a bit.

Good stuff.

Return to Providence

 Today turned out to be another great day in many ways. The weather was incredible, albeit a bit on the warm side. Despite a hiatus from the Providence cyclocross races the past couple of years, I decided to give it another go. The venue is scenic and historic Roger Williams Park. I'd forgotten or rather hadn't really recognized how amazingly beautiful that park is. My hope is to go there at some point for fun and hit the Zoo and gardens and swan boats and so much more.

The day started early so we could get to the venue while there were still parking spots available, as parking there can be a challenge. We ended up with a fine spot at then did the rounds to registration and then chatting with the endless parade of cyclocross friends. At some point I changed up to pre-ride the course. Early in the day it was slick but with dry sunny and warm weather predicted, the course was sure top tack up quickly. By the end of the Cat4 35+ race, the second race of the day, the course was much improved. It was also warming quickly and was sure to be a factor.

Once again we had a big field of men in the 45+ race, with most of the crew of masters racers in attendance minus a couple who either opted for a weekend off or to do the 35+ race instead. I had the luxury of a front row start and tried to use it well. My starts have gotten much better lately, oddly enough, in part because I switched to shoes that I seem to have great luck clipping in with. Today I was feeling a little tired and wanted to play it safe, especially given that it was warm. With a little chaos we staged and soon we had Diane giving instructions and then we were off. I settled in about fifth wheel making sure I kept tabs but not wanting to set pace when others were happy to do so. I lost a couple more spots as Mark, Don and then John came by me to join Sam and Jeff who were chasing the guy off the front. I was OK with that and never slipped too far back. Quietly, I was waiting and trying to to conserve as long as possible before I had to go really hard, a point that I knew was inevitable. Effectively I was being lazy but I suspected we were going to be in for a long race.

Within a lap we had a solid group of about five or six. Things thinned a bit and then I found myself nearer the front so decided to have a dig and close the gap on the lead a bit. Quickly I realized that it was too hot for a solo effort and asked Sam if he had the suds to work together. Not one to be afraid of work, Sam came to the front and charged hard, bringing us up to the leader. Coming back onto the start/finish pavement I went hard and we broke clear of the leader and thinned the group a bit more. From there we took turns riding steady, hard and clean. It was Sam, John and I at that point. My concern that we would have a long day was well founded as we do many laps, baking in the sun and trying to stave off the effects of the heat. With a few to go John popped off the back a bit as steady power was continually applied. Sam and I have very similar styles and today was a good race for us.

As the laps ticked off it became about attrition. Small gaps when you are on the limit translate to being impossible to close down. I managed to get a small gap on Sam riding up over the run-up section, which we were all doing, and that proved to be the decisive factor. With one lap to go I had slim margin so rode the final lap as hard as possible while still playing it super cautious. It was a good day and I was lucky. The bike worked flawlessly and the the tire choice was perfect. Cathy diligently worked the pit for me, shouting encouragement all the while. As Matt reminded me, I am so very fortunate. Another Great Day.

I am proud and honored to race against such quality gentlemen. It is unfortunate though, that my good friend Mark had an incident with an overly aggressive rider today during our race, resulting in a crash and injury. That's just plain wrong and uncalled for and I am truly sorry for his misfortune. Hopefully Marky heals up and is back tomorrow.

Many thanks for an awesome day and to the promoters of the event who gave one of the best medals ever, a set of bells from the Bevin Brothers Bell Company in East Hampton, CT. Incredible product and a touching story. We should cherish, honor and patronize these types of hometown, made in the USA businesses.

Monstercross Reborn

So, back at the end of last year I cobbled together a monster-cross bike from my old Soul Cycles Dillinger 29er frameset, some dirt-drop bars and a bunch of parts that I had in the bin. I rode it around some and though novel, it was deemed good for nothing. Make that, good at nothing.

Late this summer I once again dug the frame out and built it back up, this time with a could small modifications and improvements like longer pull brake levers which gave a much nicer feel to the discs. I found myself gravitating to the bike and rode it a number of times. That was, until cross season started. It has since been sitting, collecting dust, much like so many of my bikes unfortunately.

We've been so stoked with the Zanconato SSCX Series that we've been twisting everyone's arms to get a SSCX bike and jump in on the fun. One of my friends, David, has trouble with normal race schedules because his kids have soccer in the AM. The SSCX events tend to be last in the day which would be a much better fit. All he needed was a bike. Unfortunately, without spending a bunch of dough, a good bike is hard to find and even harder to make, at least if you don't want it to explode and kill everyone in the vicinity.

It occurred to me that, given we are the same size, I could easily convert the geared Dillinger 29er to SS as it has an EBB and is designed as a SS MTB in the first place and let David use that. With the rigid fork and dirt-drop bars the bike may look a bit odd but handles fine. I had a very nice and light set of Crossmax 29er wheels lying around that my friend John didn't want. These came together to make a respectably light weigh yet super beefy SSCX of doom. The best part is that I think I can get David in on the SSCX fun now.