Jules said:

Here are the races I'm thinking of this year:

Sep 14/15 Catamount VT

Sep 28/29 Gloustah

Oct 5/6 Providence

Oct 12 Whirly Bird

Oct 26 DONUT DERBY

Oct 27 HPCX

Jules said:

Oh shit. I forgot the other totally frustrating part about Cross.  If you want to do well, it's all about the callup, ie: where you are placed in the starting grid.

Sometimes it is based on cross results points, sometimes it is based on series points, and sometimes, damn their eyes it is based on order of registration...

I don't want to spend Christmas cuddling my cross bike and divorce papers.

• Elite Men, Elite Women - current UCI published rankings, random draw
• Men 3, Masters 45+ (1-3) Men, Masters 55+ Men, Junior 10-14 - current NECXS series points, promoter discretion.
• Masters 35+ Men (1-3)/Juniors 15-18 (1-3) & Women 3/4/Master Women 35+ 3/4 - For each group, riders that have received series points during the year will have their finish places added together relative to the field size.  For example, a rider that finishes 1st in a 75 rider group will receive 75 staging points (NOT SERIES POINTS), and a rider that finishes 10th in a 50 rider field will receive 40 staging points.  Riders who do not start will receive 0 staging points.  Riders who start but are pulled from the race will receive a finish place and thus staging points based on when they are pulled.  Riders who start but cannot finish will be assigned 1 less staging point than the last rider who finished.  The rider with the higher staging points will be staged ahead of riders with lower staging points.  
• Cat 4 Men, Cat 4 Masters 35+ - promoter discretion.

VERY IMPORTANT observation about "promoter discretion" for the Cat 4s. Hotlist reports that all new England races EXCEPT STERLING use crossresults.com rankings for call-ups. So go to bed and dream of deep dish carbon rims and handmade tubulars at 23psi.

FWIW, Sterling first uses Verge series points and for Cat 4s (who do not collect series points), the promoter does "random draw." Last year, Hotlist observed Bertucco's head explode as day 1 he randomly got stared in the 9th row, then on day 2, he was in the 11th row and both days, set world records for slowest first lap as he waited for guys who were doing their very first cross race ever start from the front row.

VERY IMPORTANT observation about MAC series races. Many, like Nittany, get pretty big turnout, so UNLESS YOU HAVE POINTS AND ARE NOT A CAT 4, skip the decaf on the day when registration opens and be prepared to stay up late to register. This start line position in race fields greater than 50 guys is for reals. It's not a lame excuse for not finishing well we tell each other after the race is over. Also, even though their rule book is conspicuously missing a reference to UCI points with regards to call-ups, they UCI rules over all. So if you have UCI points, they take presidency over MAC series points.

Marc Bertucco said:

Hotlist doesn't want everyone to have to sift back through the archives so he'll summarize some of the big New England events now.

And all of this time I was sure that "Hotlist was a lady.

Hotlist has plenty to say about the races in NE as I'm not a NE racer these days. But here are my $0.02:

1. Attend one of my CX clinics. The first will be on August 24. The second August 31. Apart from Canadian Mike, everyone in Kissena who is going to race CX should attend. You will get better.

2. Practice - you need to find time to practice the skills that you learn at the Clinic(s). Fridays or Mondays are good for this. You don't have to go hard those days, but you do need to make your skills a natural part of your riding. It took me an entire season to incorporate remounts to my racing because I didn't learn proper technique in the beginning. Learn the technique and then make it your own.

3. Equipment - start sorting it out now. I replaced the bearings in one bike yesterday. I have to check the glue job on the tubies, get another set of wheels set up and potentially re-cable the bikes (though they still seem to be working great). It's August, but CX starts in September. Get the gear sorted out now. Oh, and ride it here and there to make sure it works!

4. Training - this goes in line with riding your bike here and there during August. There are four things you need in CX to be competitive (not that being competitive is necessary to make CX the most fun you have on two wheels): 1. Technical Skills (see above); 2. Base fitness (this is where a season of road racing and training are useful, especially those TT efforts from Wednesday mornings); 3. Clip in starts (these are exactly what they sound like and you need to practice foot on the ground, clip in and accelerate like the race is ending, but at the beginning so that you can get going at the start of a CX race and KEEP going for a minute - maybe do 8 of these efforts on Tuesdays instead of sprints; and 4. Short intervals - while the base fitness carries you through, the ability to go HARD/easy, HARD, easy, HARD HARD HARD, is essential to being competitive. To help you here, you want to incorporate two types of intervals into your training - 10sec HARD / 20sec easy - start with a set of 10 (5 min), then work up to 3 sets of 10 with 5 min between sets (work up over three weeks). The other interval is 30s/30s. Again, start with one set of 10 and work up to 3 sets with 5 min rest in between each.

To recap the essential elements of fitness:

1. Base - you need to be getting fit NOW  - not racing, but riding.

2. Clip in starts - 1 min efforts from foot down position.

3. Short intervals - 10s/20s and 30s/30s.

As for Races:

1. Nittany is becoming one of my favorites - it's fun and warm. I've done it twice - 1st time - OH MY was it muddy, 2nd time - OH MY it was dusty. Either way, there are lots of Kissenas here and its a great race.

2. Northampton Cycle-Smart - the first time I was going here was in 2002, but my car died on the way. It took another 9 years to get back and I'm glad I did. Marc's got the description right, but something about the course bothers me as the Masters kick my ass and the course has made me change bikes (thanks Jim and Jeff) both years. However, I like to slay demons and Northampton has those twin demons.

3. Providence - perversely, last year, my son was at my parents for this weekend and I couldn't go because the wife didn't want to go to a CX race. I'm going to prioritize it a bit this year and bring the kid so the wife has to come! 

4. #'s 2&3 = I like NE cross because it represents a new challenge,  I just don't head up that way much.

5. Town Hall - that was fun and HARD last year. Good food and beer after.

6. HPCX - it's close, its fun, what's not to like (other than Sandy hitting the day of last year).

7. SuperCup - our race - I'll likely be helping to setup the course, brining my son in to reset it Saturday evening (never to early to get the kid doing course design) and showing up again Sunday to support the race. Its the thing that ALL of us should put on the calendar as a MUST attend - not just for racing, but to make it the kick ass, awesome race that Kissena should be proud of promoting. Josh and Mike should probably start calling for volunteers soon. 

8. No matter how many or how few races you do, or what level you do them at, have fun. That's what I love most about CX - it doesn't matter for the most part. I found that when I was doing well in a series, I started to feel compelled to show up to every race and it took lots of fun out of it. Now as I bounce around series' a bit more, I find myself having a better time. But truth be told, I've made sure to have enough MAC points to assure a decent start at Nittany in the Masters race ;-)