Entries from October 1, 2012 - October 31, 2012
Cross Racing Week 4 | Interlocken and Xilinx
Photo by Dejan Smaic - Sportif Images
Ups and downs...highs and lows. It was a weekend full of 'em! The Boulder-area had some of our classics this weekend. Interlocken on Saturday and Xilinx on Sunday are two of the most revered and favorite courses by the locals run by some of our best promoters, Boulder Racing and Blue Sky Velo.
Interlocken
The weather the Front Range has been experiencing is classic Indian Summer - warm sunny days with dry and fast conditions. But we can always artificially make a 'cross
Cross Racing Week 3 | The Fort Collins USGP's
The big show. The Grand Prix's. The circus comes though once a year to Colorado and it's fantastic to see great friends as they follow the caravan from city to city. But alas, I've had a love/hate relationship with the USGPs. It's a crap shoot so for me, I can really set no audacious goals. Just train within the tempo of the folks who have been racing or are peaking for these two days. And that's exactly what I did. With no meaningful call up procedure (my sorry ass was in the smoking section both days), I had to just look at personal objectives: ride smooth, attack all the hills, stay in the wheels. I still can not figure out why the GP's can not use USAC's ranking system to determine call ups. Order of registration feels like a cop-out as we've now compiled and can access much more sophisticated data to lay out a start grid. But I digress.
Day 1
It seems like the weather gods know exactly where to be on the first Saturday of the Colorado leg of the GP's: Directly over Fort Collins. The morning races were gorgeous....but by mid day (the Junior races and elite master races), the skies opened up, temps dropped and the rain began to piss down.
My oldest, Aiden (10), is now in full swing racing in his 3rd season of cross. He gets it all...the mud, the suffering, the self control...but on the start line he and all the other brave kids were standing there in a collective vibrating mass. All shivering. Nerves, fear and cold all building up waiting for the whistle. Aiden, on the front row was looking at me terrified. Then the chief referee signals "30 SECONDS!!!". Aiden looks forward, breathes and stops shivering. Today he's racing with the BIG kids. The teenagers. His calmness inspired me and when that whistle blew, he ripped to an incredible 14th amongst a huge field in horrible conditions. So proud of him. I can only envision what he is learning about himself at this age. Let's face it, when I was 10 years old, I was not doing this. Not even close. Shivering on the bench in a hockey arena or soccer field can not compare to this level of bravery.
Photo by Amy Keller
The 35 Masters then lined up. I'm in the back of the bus in the 6th row and I can see my teammate and current world champion Pete Webber not too far ahead. I'm thinking: "How can a world champion not get a courtesy call up? When he goes to Belgium
Greg Keller tagged 2012 cross racing, Clement, SRAM, USGP, ridley in Racing Gregory Keller on Google + Cross Racing Week 1 and 2 | Settling in.
Oh. Whoa. It's here! Cross is upon us full stop here in Colorado. Already some 4 weekends in, it's on like Donkey King as our bud Dave Towle rips over the mic. For me...tranquility. Injuries are a distant memory and I am just melting into the season slowly and progressively. Pete Webber is keeping my body and mind moving forward with incredibly fun training and yet again I am back again to try and be the best that I possibly can in this life and in the sport that I bleed for.
The Boulder Cycle Sport Ambassadors Team is back and in effect. More on this as we get into the meat of our season. We've graduated Allen to his first pro contract with Raleigh-Clement, and have taken on a new Boulder transplant and all around good guy, Russ Stevenson. So stoked to have him and his knowledge on the team.
Now...let's nerd-out: The bikes. Oh yes. BCS riders have embraced bear hugged the disc movement with Ridley's newest 2013 X-Fire Disc. I'll do a dedicated post on the details but let's just say: I get it. Yes, the weight needs to come down and it will. But it is exactly like the moment we made the leap from V-brakes to discs in the early 2000's en masse and people simply could not believe why they waited. The one finger speed shaving let's my hand stay in a natural position in lieu of trying to gobble the levers with multiple fingers. The modulation of the Avid BB7's is extremely smooth. None of the ON / OFF syndrome people feared with discs on a rigid carbon fork and skinny knobbies. They modulate smoothly and totally predictably. I am praying for the rain gods to piss on us and turn the earth to shit.
Below is bike one in the stand with a set of training wheels on (and that is yet another discussion...as these are tubeless and are incredible). Oh, and yes, did you catch that? That's two maddeningly hypocritical statements of mine so I'm eating my hat. I'd said 'NO' to discs in a Mountain Bike article some years ago and anyone who knows me knows how I've thrown tubeless under the bus. They are not tubulars, no. But the combo of Clement and Stans Iron Cross rims feels...well, solid. A bit wide (35+ mm) but fun and cushy. And thus far, the bead is sick. Pas des burps.
So while all this bike building, rehabbing and working is going down, other good stuff is happening. Got to spend time with US Pro Challenge stage winner Rory Sutherland who manned the taps at Rocky Mounts with Timmy Duggan. Love these guys. Rory sought me out
