What now?

The road racing season has come to a close, Tuesday night track races are done for the year. So what's a person to do?

A. Take a few months off and wait for the road racing season to start.
B. Work on that landscaping project you put off during the summer.
C. Start racing Cyclocross.

If you chose C you are correct!

Last season I raced a couple cyclocross races here in Monterey and quickly became hooked. The local series Central Coast Cyclocross is well run and the people are great to be around. Perhaps the best part is that the races only 15 minutes from my front door. No more waking up at 4 AM and driving hours to a race.



The first race of the 2008/09 season started at Fort Ord today. The groups were a bit larger than last year. This is mostly due to the fact that most of the racers are just coming off the road racing season and still have good form. It could also be that cyclocross is becoming more popular. Could CX be the new MTB?


2008 CCCX #1, Sept 21, Fort Ord, C Lap 1 of 4 from Steven Woo on Vimeo.
My Flickr friend Steven Woo captured this video of the first lap. I can be seen passing Steven at about the 5 minute mark . It's a good thing Steven was in front of me the first part of the lap because coming into the second set of barriers I ate it.


Le Ouch

The rest of the race went well with only a few mistakes. I passed several people during the 4 laps but it was difficult to tell what place I was in during the race due to the fact that other people were warming up on the course at the same time.


On the last lap two people passed me on the road section. This was ok because I thought I was in the middle of the pack. I kept pace with these two until the last climb up a sandy section. I passed one of the riders halfway up the hill and tried to keep the other in my sights. As he increased the tempo did not think I could keep up so I let him go.


Coming into the last set of barriers before the finish my rear wheel hit the first barrier and the bike bounced up above my head. I was able to hold it together over the second barrier and finished in 6th out of 26. I found out later that I was just one spot out of the prizes (A flat of Cal Giant Strawberries).

6th?! I thought I was mid pack. Oh well, Lesson learned. Race to win.

Check out the Race Report.