Monday, October 20, 2008

I'm well into the third fall here in Philadelphia. It's been nice not to have school to contend with, but honestly, I'm getting a little buggy without fulltime employment. I have been assured that there are jobs out there, but damned if I can find them. I have thus far been able to occupy myself with small tasks around the house, building Jennifer's bike and various other things. Now I'm just antsy. At least I have a bike to ride.

I was cross examined this weekend, in a big, painful way. Result: Pass, but just barely.

The Granogue race was on saturday. The race course is laid out in a segment of the DuPont family estate, and has a wide variety of hills, dales and rooty trails to negotiate. Overall the course was on the technical side with those riders who could get out in front quickly and stay away in the following melee at a distinct
advantage. I, without the virtue of preregistration, found myself squarely starting in 108th position at the line. Not the ideal place to be on a course in which crashes and ugly conglomerations of riders make moving up relatively difficult over the long haul. I felt pretty decent, had no real mechanical failures and eventually found myself in no-man's-land toward the middle of the race. This is not quite as bad a place to be as in a road race, but it still no easy feat to bridge
up to riders further along the course. With one lap to go, I managed to get a side stitch and lost 3 or 4 places to various other folks and ended up in 49th.

Wissihickon on Sunday. Got there plenty early and the wide open course was great for spectating but also great for whipping any last trace of heat from a person's body. I'd raced the course in past years and had a bit better idea of what to expect, plus the wider trails allowed me a bit more chance to pass people. I also preregistered (a must for a big cyclocross race) and was a few spots ahead of last this at the start line. The race went pretty well, and except for my general weakness in the tighter technical spots, I did a decent job of making up ground
against other guys. I ended the day in 30th spot. Another Pass.

The best part was sitting in the sun afterwords, drinking some Victory beer and watching the OTHER guys suffer. That's what cyclocross is really all about.

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