If anyone has an explanation, I'd love to hear it.

Jules said:

Insane! http://cvccbike.com/50th_Anniversary_US_CX/The 1963 US Cyclocross Championships.html

Man, I can't believe you sandbaggers didn't send up a flair saying HPCX registration was open. Just for that, I'm going to come from the third row and crush you.

For everyone else, HPCX is open and order of registration matters for start line position!!!

Also, Fair Hill, another MAC race, technically in MD, but still just 2 hours away, is a nice climbing heavy course with some interesting features. Most of you will be saving your bullets for HPCX the next day, but Todd and I will be racing the 2/3/4s. Well, he'll be racing and I'll just be...trying not to embarrass myself.

@Marc all this posting an no hotlist? What's the deal? The weekend is almost here. 

if Bob Bikebuyer were to buy a new cyclocross bike this season, how would he decide whether to buy a bike with disc brakes or rim brakes?

Braking in cross is what makes you loose anyway.

The Hotlist: Episode Four

This past weekend, 15 of Kissena’s finest VSOP and XO-grade cyclocrossers took to the nearby lands of whirling birds and rivers where cognac casks are born to test themselves against MAC series regulars and New Jersey natives alike. While the two courses did have their technical challenges, they mostly gave big engines a chance to beat up on better bike drivers.

From hole-shot to final sprints and everything in between, Hotlist—in between heckles—was there to see it all. And he LOVED what he saw. New racers digging deep and making us laugh, top-10 hotlist regulars facing adversity and fighting back, veteran racers busting through plateaus to reach new levels of awesomeness and more. Let’s not waste anymore time and see what this week’s hotlist looks like.

1.     Eric Ragot. With a rolled tubular, sub-par finish, and a post-race blame-game flurry of “Why didn’t YOU check my pit bike,” Hotlist should drop Ragot down the list on principle alone. But Hotlist was there to witness what might have been a 260-ish point performance making it one of his best of the season. So this week he stays on top.

2.     Todd McLoughlin. On the Injured Reserve list this week, Todd was out of action, but holds onto the number two spot. This weekend at Marty he’s going to be back on a course that he casually mentions is “good for him.” But all of our Cat 3s and Nearly Cat 3s are going to be in action and McLoughlin is going to have some serious intramural competition.

3.     Michael Perlberg. Another full weekend of racing in the books and Perlberg doesn’t show any signs of letting up. 13^th at Whirlybird’s 2/3/4 race and 5^th at Cooper River at a Cat 3 only race earned him 314 and 313 points respectively. If he keeps this up, a totally legit Cat 2 upgrade can’t be too far behind.

4.     David Stokes. Last week, Stokes left us all wondering “what happened?” This week, he laid down a blistering, career-best performance that might have had USADA re-evaluating their “random” list of subjects to test.  Starting MINUTES BEHIND the 45+ field, Stokes wasn’t content in only crushing his 55+ age-groupers, he rode through the back of the 45+ whipper-snapper field and finished FOURTH in a MAC series field. Are you kidding me? FOURTH!?!?!? Hands down, most exciting race performance of the weekend.

5.     Jules Roazen. In the battle of our best Cat 4s, the Canadian tall man stands above the rest of the 4s this week. Strictly speaking, his Whirlybird fifth is a slip from Providence Podium Power. But his steady ride earned him a solid 383 points narrowly edging out De Baca’s 29^th place finish in the more challenging 2/3/4 field.

6.     Joaquin De Baca. If it weren’t for some fancy-footwork that left him off his bike and in a Course-Tape-Tango that would have given him a perfect 30 on Dancing with the Stars, Joaquin would have easily owned 5^th or possibly 4^th on the hotlist this week. But that’s not what happened and so he drops to number six.

7.     Patrick Grehan. Narrowly edging out Jim Feehan for the number 7 spot on this week’s Hotlist, Grehan earns this spot this week by virtue of a solid 8^th place in the Cat 4 race at Whirlybird. Plus, he jumped into the 2/3/4 race, racing extremely well holding a top 30-ish position in his second race of the day before a rolled tubular encouraged Patrick to DNF himself.

8.     Jim Feehan. His 25^th place in the 45+ field at Whirlybird earned him a rock-solid 390 points (4 points better than Grehan’s 8th in fact, but Hotlist believes, this week, if they went head to head, Patrick wins). And with his quiet, smooth riding style he makes it look easy. Too easy maybe. Sunday’s NJ championships at Cooper River saw him ride to a 13^th place overall (5^th NJ rider) which was good but not quite good enough for the club’s most experienced crosser.

9.     Konrad Ratzmann. With just a few races completed in 2013, Konrad, with his 8^th place in the Cat 4 race at Cooper River, finally appears to be showing glimmers of what we expect from someone who is so brutally strong on the road. (Now if the team could just get this guy to set his alarm for some park races in 2014).

10. Jeffrey White. His 29^th place finish at Whirlybird, is frankly, for White, kind of average. And besides the point. Early in the race, he was riding easily in the top 10 before a flat tire caused him to visit the pit and lose valuable position. Hotlist is waiting for White to crash through the glass ceiling he’s been racing below for too long…this could have been the weekend.

Next up is Marty Cross, another local New Jersey weekend of racing, that's just about as close as they come to our home base. As such, as far as Kissena participation, it should be another exciting weekend to watch and heckle. In addition to all the usual suspects, JP Partland is finally ready to defend his top placing at last year's KCC club CX championships, plus we've go the first race of one of our women's team in Gwynna Smith.