Racing at Canton

This past weekend was the Canton Cup cross race. Canton is the first place I ever raced cx and perhaps because of that, is one of my favorite courses, despite all the grass. Last year, I had Frank tagging along. This weekend, I convinced both S and PFFC to come down to Canton with me although I couldn't convince them to race. Perhaps I could persuade them if they changed the rules requiring riders to chug a beer at each barrier.

The course starts with a slight uphill road with a right turn onto double-track dirt. Then you pop out onto snaky turns on grassy fields, tiny bit of single-track, a curvy asphalt path through the woods, more grass with a few 180 degree turns, 3/4 of a lap around a running track (with a nice rubber surface). There were three sets of barriers (two seemed super high) and one short run-ups. The day itself was chilly, around 45 or so, I think. Cloudy and somewhat windy in spots on the course.

Since the start is similar to Gloucester, I went with Cris' suggestion of starting in the big ring and that worked well. I had a decent start (after watching the mens cat 4 carnage 10 sec into their start) and headed into the first twisty, grass turns pretty fast. So fast that I had to brake pretty hard to avoid a slower rider negotiating a turn which caused someone to buzz my tire and go down. (Sorry about that, fallen rider!). I fell off the leaders around the first barriers and as we hit the curvy asphalt path, Michele from ECV prodded me to pick it up and go catch them. Picked up the pace and pulled Michele with me. Loved the feeling of zipping down that curvy path, taking the turns relatively fast and remembering watching women wipe out on those turns last year. Thankfully, no wet leaves this year which made it easier to push the pace. Anyway, we almost had caught up to the leaders until we hit that little uphill dirt off the path where the rider in front of us jumped off and forced us off our bikes. Michele then made a move near the second set of barriers and was gone. I couldn't catch her the rest of the race. With her gone, I focused on trying to catch Giulia (IBC) and a Cambridge Bicycle rider for the remaining three laps. By the third lap, I was starting to pass some of the cat 4 men. On the last lap, I finally caught Giulia by the first barriers. The three of us kept changing position. By the time we hit the asphalt path, I was behind the Cambridge rider and letting her do the work. By the turn before the last set of barriers, I was behind both Giulia and the Cambridge rider, they slowed for the turn around the tree, I punched it to get in front. Was over the barriers first but lost them after the barriers. On the uphill sprint to the finish, I managed to catch and beat the Cambridge rider but couldn't catch Giulia. Totally fun race. Nice to be racing instead of merely surviving. :) Came in 14th of 38 starters.

Finished up with some pumpkin ales (yum) while we watch Jorge's race and people-watched the other riders. Never got to the see the results (which resulted in the fiasco described in the previous post.) Thankfully, after exchanging emails with the race director, it looks like the results will be corrected and reposted. Whew. I feel better now. :)