Jeff and Jill and myself were out representing KCC today. Jeff and I raced, Jill was cheering. A quick scan of the results before I left revealed no other KCC riders, although Ragot raced the 35+ race early-ish this morning to a 10th place.

Jeff's new bike (looks great by the way) developed a case of the handlebar "dropsies" when he hit the bumpy grass descents. I shouted to him at one point, "do you want me to go to the pit with a tool?" And he was all like, not unless you have a torx wrench. Doh! He and JP can join the "slipping cockpit/need a torx wrench club." JP had a similar problem with his shifters on the last ride he and I did.

Anyway, as Jeff and I discussed after his race, even though he didn't have the race he maybe wanted/expected, he's really getting to work out a few bugs and figuring out what needs to be dialed in for a big block of important cross racing coming up. #Gloucester #lemonadefromlemons

For those of you not familiar with the Town Hall course, let me say there were three main skills required. 1) Climbing. More climbing than even the HPCX course I would say. 2) Bombing grassy descents with gravel crossings for extra "yikes." 3) Carving 180s, and accelerating out of them. I thought more than once, this would be an ideal Mike Garrigan course. And it would have been fun to see him battle flyweight superstar the mysterious Cameron "I don't want to go to Vegas and race a World Cup even though they asked me and I am literally one of the top 5 crossers in this entire country" Dodge.

In the A race, as a day-of registrant, I had the privilege of lining up at the back. No surprise there, but no worries either. And to my surprise, I actually had a pretty good start and was climbing comfortably that first time up Alp d'huez. My goal was to see if I could hang with ex-Cat 3 stud and current UCI elite Keith Garrison from King Kog. Things were going well, I was careful not to blow myself up on the long series of switchback grassy climbs, until a dude totally t-boned me from behind in a corner. I got gapped and that was it.

Spent the rest of the 60+ minutes fending off chasers and passing the odd rider here or there. This race was great training and sets me up well for what looks to be another dry dusty Gloucester. By the second half of the race I felt like I had the corners pretty dialed. Plenty of good reminders to look where you want to go, not at that stake you are trying to avoid. It's a hard lesson to remember, but it works. And by the time I finally forced myself to do it, I wasn't running off course anymore and I was going faster. Also a reminder that while "smooth is fast," you ALSO have to get out of the saddle and hammer out of the corners. I mean, if you really, truly want to do your best, you still have to put in that extra effort.

In the end, I did get lapped by Dodge and two chasers. No big surprise, but honestly, only being 1 lap down to Dodge, on a course pretty much custom made for his 120lb soaking wet frame? I'll take that any day of the week. Finished 28 out of 31. For additional reference, Keith Garrison finished in 22nd, Aspholm 4th.

So exhausted. 8 laps of so hard. Even the younger riders were complaining about back pain today. But a good hard. After 60 minutes of epic climb-tastic racing today, 45 minutes at Gloucester will be "easy!"

I'm considering this as my first CX race of the year, a warm-up to Gloucester and HPCX. Anybody driving over to Bethlehem with room for one more? 

Scratch that! Won't make it. 

Jeff and I will be racing!

Is anyone racing Town Hall this weekend?