Lapham Peak CX

This past weekend was the Lapham Peak doubleheader. An uphill TT and a cross country TT on Saturday, a real cross race on Sunday. The TTs were about as un-fun as predicted, though I didn't ride terribly. Showed up ~25 seconds late for my start on the hill climb, so that hurt my time. I had a pretty good time on the cross country TT and overall I don't think my blunder was enough to have taken me out of the money on its own, so no harm done.

Sunday was much more fun. We had a pretty good turnout, and it was fun having so many people to cheer for in the 4s, almost to the point where you can't even keep track of everyone.

My race consisted of three distinct phases. The first was a bad start. I showed up to the line later than I should have (as per usual) and got a second-row start which guaranteed getting bottlenecked into the middle of the pack. Then while trying to get around riders who were at a near standstill at the first barrier, my chain came off. That could have been much worse than it was, because the front derailleur I have mounted for the purpose of keeping it on is a tight enough fit that it doesn't always want to go back on once it's off. Luckily I was able to pedal it back on, but lost a handful of spots in the process. So I spent the next couple of laps on the rivet, trying to get past slower traffic. At one point I saw Ben at the side of the trail, working on getting his chain back on. Quite an unfortunate setback for him, since he was probably at the front when it happened.

The middle phase was settling in and slowly moving up. I got into a group of four with Nine and a couple of hangers-on, and I got the impression that everyone else was pretty gassed. Nine and I traded at the front of the group a few times, and the other two would yo-yo but kept coming back. What looked like an ISCorp rider rode up to us and kept going on ahead. I was able to recover a bit, and normally this would be where I would go into survival mode to maintain my current spot. This time, though, I had a rare combination of mental sharpness and the legs to increase the pace, so my goal was more aggressive than usual. I felt I could go faster and the group was softpedaling a bit after barriers, so I came to the front and turned it up a bit through the next set, held it on the open flat section after it, and they faded back.

photo: Djonn

Now in no-man's-land, I could see riders off in the distance ahead, and nobody behind. Out of nowhere, Ben rides past me and I grab his wheel for a lap or two. We could see Casey and another rider ahead. "Is that third and fourth place?" "I dunno, is there another rider besides the Polksa up there?" "Not sure, how many laps left?" "I don't know." "I think we can catch them." Ben did a good impression of being tired for a minute and I took a turn setting the pace. Then we hit the run-up and he hit the gas again, fading off into the distance. For the last two laps I rode with the happiness of seeing the front end of the race just ahead of me and worked on reeling them in.

Ben ended up making his way all the way back up front to take the win. Unbelievable. I came in fifth, so all things considered I'm very satisfied, and whatever I did right I hope I can keep doing it. Sometimes the suffering fades into the background and things just work out.

also by Djonn