Next weekend, I'm going to be upstate again and this time going for a state championship medal. Do you know that JP is the club's only and current state champion? Is this true? If so, I cannot let that stand. To Saratoga Springs I go!

http://www.cxmagazine.com/saratoga-spa-cyclocross-host-york-state-championships

I still haven't sorted out a ride for Cooper River tomorrow. @danielhubbard do you still have a spot? Or anyone else?

Derek Chiles said:

I still haven't sorted out a ride for Cooper River tomorrow. @danielhubbard do you still have a spot? Or anyone else?

If everyone is full I will get a zipcar and then I'll have an extra spot.

I'm in the same sitchiation. If someone has room, I'd love to cram. Or split a Zipcar/rental.

Hi Derek

Happy to offer ride

You and Jeff need to figure out what time you want to leave. My guess is 930 latest

My address is below.

347-277-1027

Daniel C Hubbard
315 Gates Ave 2L
Brooklyn, NY 11216

347-277-1027

Guessing 930 should depart

Apt address below. Come early for a coffee

Daniel C Hubbard
315 Gates Ave 2L
Brooklyn, NY 11216

Awesome, thanks Daniel.

I live in the west village - are you planning on taking the holland tunnel? How do you feel about picking me up on canal street and say varick? It would save me a trek over the bridge with all my race gear.

Thanks.

Hey trolling points lists and what not trying to decide what MAC series races to sign up for and I see that some puke named Mark Branle has raced 5 times this year and won 4. The other race he came in 2nd.

http://www.crossresults.com/racer/78049

Someone upgrade this sandbagging son-of-a-gun, okay?

Jules, is it possible to consolidate all the cross race reports discussions on this thread? I'm having a hard time following all the various Kissena strike teams on their various assignments every weekend.

Marc got 3rd today. Pics to follow.

I did over 6 hours of driving this weekend for a 45 minute race to get a flat on the second lap as far from the pit as possible. Fuck me.

Fun course though. Would do again.

wow, 6 hours? traffic or was it that far?

Anyone on the club correspond at all with Adam Myerson? I know he's not in the business of doling out free advice (he runs a coaching business), but I have a few pretty specific questions about his course, the Cycle-Smart International (Northampton).

JP is friends with him

Marc he is very accessible on twitter. @AdamMyerson

Who is in for marty cross? I have luka and want to race. Anybody going to be there early enough to hang with him for a race?

eragot said:

wow, 6 hours? traffic or was it that far?

1.5 hours to get to my parents, 1 hour to the race, 3.5 hours from race to home. Traffic on the way home was  a mess. It took 45 minute to get through the turnpike exit toll to the Gothels.

I think it should be a sub 2 hour drive with less traffic. Note for Beacon, the Turnpike is undergoing massive amounts of construction.

Eric, what race are you doing?

I can do Masters 40+ or 1-2-3.
Kid's Race is at 11:45. Cat 4 race is at 1:15. Cat 3 at 2:15
Masters at 10:15, 1-2-3 at 12:00.
If I do masters than Cat 4 warmup is not affected. If I do 1-2-3, Cat 4 race follows, so a Cat 4 watching Luka isn't good (for them). Cat 3 is fine (Mike, et al...).

Travel time should be about 1:30, so, for the Masters race, leave at 8?

hmmm, let's see who else is coming as I couldn't warm up.
so let's see, a Cat 4 under 40 would be the perfect person to be around...

Marc podiums and we have no race report?  (pounds table with tire level in each hand)

Sorry for the tardy report...first day home with the baby, while mom is at work...no extended naps...just 20 minutes here and there. Blurg. Mixed weekend of racing for me.

On Saturday my wife, baby, sister and dog drove up to Troy, NY for day one of the Uncle Sam GP held on varied course in another Prospect Park. (They should rename it Floyd Bennet Field and just wait for a flood of Kissena riders to descend next year).

This race is part of an Albany region series promoted by the folks of NYCross.com. I think Chabanov was briefly wearing their colors a few years back. On the one hand, with an official series and a pretty decent looking website, you might expect pretty high, as Adam Myerson describes it, "production values." But dig just below the surface and you've got the makings of a small-town cyclocross race. Still worth the trip though.

I registered day-of for the Cat 3/4 race which featured the home-team's ringers who have been competing in the Pro races at Gloucester and Providence, but inexplicably decided to race a 3/4 race instead of a 1/2/3 race. (Scared of Christian Favata, some Hot Tubes youngster, Gavi Epstein and Roger Aspholm much?)

As a day-of registrant, I was in the last row of a 60-ish rider field. I did my best to move up early and often, but while this course--overall--gets high marks for interesting features and challenges, has a way-too-short starting shoot that narrows and pinches way-too-soon to give me a legit shot at a respectable finish. My fitness is coming around, but it's not that good yet, if you know what I'm saying.

In the end, the best I could manage was 45th place on Saturday. I got some nice, "go Kissena" cheers from spectators whom I did not know.

Sunday I traveled about 2 hours south to Cherry Hill, NJ for the Cooper RIver Cross. The course was flat, full of turns and at first blush, kind of dull. Of course what I realized during racing is that when you are in the heat of the battle, the character of the course changes, and I, like Mike P, would do it again next year. The day started much the same as the previous. Standing in front of an open laptop for what seemed like forever, waiting to register day-of. There was a woman there, but no one taught her how to do registration, and so I waited for the registration guy to return to his post.

Please, please, please, I'm looking forward to helping make our race, as pro as possible. Hopefully you guys are already making plans to help volunteer (many hands, makes light work) as well as race that weekend.

Thank god the Cat 4 field was full at pre-reg, because I don't think I could have handled another start at the back of a 100 rider cat 4 field and move up to mid-pack at best and take a serious hit to my crossresults and ego points. I had two options available to me instead. 40+ Masters Open or 40+ Masters Cat 4 only. Both relatively smallish fields in the 30-40 range as of close of pre-registration. Both choices were covered with rooty twisty turny, off camber, muddy pitfalls. The point quality of the Master's Open race would certainly be higher (lower), but at a small race, the drop-off from the top guys to the bottom guys would be steep, and I'd be starting at the back. The Master's Cat 4 field, would feature more guys like me (with rolly-polly bellies and fewer miles in the saddle), but the poorer quality of the overall field meant more pressure to perform even better. And I was still starting from the back. In the end, the Cat 4 Masters race was a little later in the day (yay, more sleep), and actually, from a sporting point of view, where I probably should be, so that was where I started on Sunday.

At the back of a 35-ish rider field. 5-rider rows, though, ensured though that it felt like I was 100 guys back. Fortunately, this course designer had a nice long stretch of pavement followed by a grassy transition that had super wide turns leaving me just enough room to, "FREAK OUT!" At the whistle, I took a breath and quickly scanned what was happening in front of me and started shooting gaps. Onto the grass, I felt like I was mid-field. The turns that followed more guys were in my rear view mirror. Things started to thin out. The turns gave way to straight power sections, I found myself on wheels of riders going, too slow. Well, not exactly. And here's where the cheering of my sister (wife, dog and baby couldn't go to this day) and my inner monologue kicks in.

"Go, go, go," she shouts "Pedal, pedal, pedal!"

I think, 'Hey, I'm going pretty hard right now, I've moved up to 8th wheel. Not too shabby. 7th or 8th place would be a'ight, dawg. But am I going as hard as I possibly can? No, no I'm not. I've got a real opportunity here. Time to dig deep.'

And then I drop the hammer, I'm picking of riders one by one. Soon, I've got 3rd place in my sites, he flubs a dusty, rooty, twisty turny section up and down a little hill and I pass him clean. The 2 in front of me are teammates and working together. They got front-row call-ups and my sister later tells me they were holding onto their 30-second gap from me for 3/4 of the race. I started to pull them back a little, and they later told me when they started seeing me coming he picked up the pace again.

I had a guy who looked like a little Ed Beamon chasing me down for 2+ laps at 10 seconds according to the helpful guys from Kissena who were there to race later. He was catching me in the super technical stuff, we were even in the grassy rights and lefts, and I had the advantage in the power stretches. He tells me he was cursing my damn pony-tail that was just out of reach. His better half, cheered for him, saying, "You can catch that girl!"

Well, this girl was having none of that nonsense.

Every time the road straightened out just a bit I poured everything I had into putting space between he and I. 4th place was not acceptable. UNACCEPTABLE. With 2 laps to go, I was anxious. One flub, one missed turn and he would be on my wheel. And yet, I couldn't dial it back the power. Focused on being smooth through the turns and full-speed sprints out of the turns. I stretched more than a few sections of caution tape, but always managed to keep my brake levers clear from the "nasty-snag." More importantly, I didn't have to break (are you proud of me Eric Ragot?). A few of those turns, I was "Billy Dee Williams Smooth," one I carved so fast and leaned my bike over so far, I felt like I was racing a crit.

They weren't all like that, not by a long-shot, but enough of them were good enough to keep my chaser at bay. With one lap to go, I still had 10 seconds (thanks for those time checks at the sideline, Kissena!) and I knew baring a major flub, he wasn't going to go 10 seconds a lap faster than me. So I really focused hard on taking the turns a little more slowly to avoid high-siding it like I almost did 2 laps earlier!

Onto the pavement for the final time, I keep sprinting full-gas, because while my chaser had given up the ghost, I won't have that kind of gap every race and need to work on sprinting at the end of a hard race if I expect to podium again when the competition is harder.

After the race, I had only two regrets. 1) I so desperately want a podium picture, holding my boy Peter in my arms. 2) My wife wasn't there to watch. Most of you know, she comes to 99.9% of my races, and has done so for 10+ years. She is always so proud of how I've done, even though 90% of those races, I don't actually do that well.

Ah well, that's motivation for another podium shot later in the season. Still plenty of racing to go!

Sweet!

Dan, Todd, Daniel, Mike, Derek, what were your final results at Cooper River?

Quickly though...

• Dan Strika race x2 on the same day and was still smiling at the end of the 40+ Cat 4 race. That's a crosser!
• Derek Chiles raced the largest field of the day, the 99+ Cat 4s and was as high as 15th in the early laps. He's feeling better than last week at Providence, but still missing some pop. He'll head to the mighty Northwest soon to find his mojo again.
• Todd Mcloughlin, Daniel Hubbard and Mike Perlberg lined up for the cat 3s and looked strong early on. Todd and Mike in 7th and 8th and Daniel 15th or so in the early part of the first lap. After the second lap, they slipped a bit, but Todd and Mike were still chasing 10th place. Mike had a rear flat and dropped to the 30s after his neutral support wheel. Todd I believe was the team's top finisher, with maybe a top 20?

Woot! Good job duders. On a side note, a friend of mine is wanting some cx practice, and after a forum search, I wasn't able to figure out if/when the Randall's Island weekly rides are happening. Also, anybody doing to secret Prospect spot practice anymore, or has that been shut out?

F'n iPad cramming word smash runon sentencing

Got a great start. 2nd row and got around some 1st row guys. Slotted in 7th or so.

Early lap 2 a rider went down in front of me after the stair ride up. I bobbled a bit and fell back to 12th or so, but right off Todd's group.

By the start finish I flatted and the tread began ripping off my rear wheel. Thump thump thump. I began loosing position very quickly. I think after the neutral wheel change (nicest wheel I've ever ridden) I was in about 47th. Pretty much last.

I made up a few places here and there. But I was tired. The neutral wheel was over inflated and I went down in a sweeping turn once. I finished 38th. 

Anyway, Beacon is coming up and that has been my first good race for the last 2 years, so I'm pinning my hopes on that race again.

I was 17th.  Had a good start, but faded afterwards.  I struggled on the loose dirt turns.  Every time I'd gain some ground, I'd come to one of those turns and lose it right back.  I think I'll have to find some dusty baseball fields to practice on.   Oh, and I need to find some more fitness.  I've been looking for that my entire life though.

I liked the course set up.  There seemed to be people cheering the whole way.   I'd go again as well.

The traffic was indeed horrendous.  In addition to the delays at exit 7 and the Gothels, traffic was backed up to the NJ Tpk toll booths at the Lincoln tunnel, and the traffic at the GWB cost me 45 mins.