Going to bed Friday night, I was optimistic about conditions being good for Saturday's racing. It was about 60 degrees, and while the threat of rain loomed over us in Northeast Ohio, I had my fingers crossed it was going to blow over.
I was wrong. Waking up Saturday morning and surveying the damage left me looking at some pretty saturated grass and temperatures substantially lower than the night before. Cross weather! Hup hup!
We lined up and all was well. I had a good warmup in, the course was awesome, albeit a bit muddy so I was feeling good. I got an alright start and was working my ass off to not let the really fast guys (Shawn, Ernie, Paul, Matt Weeks, Rudy, Ross, Tony etc...) out of my sight.
All was going well until wham! I overcooked a turn and ate it super bad. My right brifter turned inward about 90 degrees, and messed my brakes up. I didn't know it was fixable, so I goofed around with it for a bit, and lo-and-behold it sorted itself out.
By the time the bike was up and running again, the field was long gone, and I was probably sitting near the back of the pack. Time to do some work and make up some ground. I pretty much kept it pinned for the rest of the race, and tried to get back where I was.
That being said, I raced pretty much the dumbest I possibly could. I was a human yardsale and wiped out a few solid times. Sorry if I scared the crap out of anyone riding behind me.
The struggle was on to make up lots of lost ground. I hurt myself as much as I could to catch up. Here I am turning down a dollar handup, as my vision was getting a bit fuzzy and I couldn't quite make out much besides a blurry shape of a human. Maybe next time.
When I finally got into my groove, I worked my way up to the top ten and was battling it out with Greg Fletcher. We went back and forth for a couple of laps, and it was awesome. I thought I was going to hold him off through the singletrack and up to the finish, but all of the sudden I saw him make his move for the line, and I was too pooped to counter. He took ninth, and I ended up in tenth. Not a bad placing, but hot dang I wish I would have raced cleaner.
Everyone's favorite cyclocross up-and-commerRobert Sroka took his first win in the B's. Good job man!
So after that, I put down a couple of PBRs, shot the shit, and then went home to was the bikes and get ready for Kent's halloween. My King Diamond costume received mixed reviews, but I was pretty happy with it.
Day Two!
Waking up Sunday morning, I was in for a treat. It felt like I had been run over by a car. My 8 million falls the other day combined with a lack of sleep and a few too many heavy-metal falsetto screams the night before left my body a mangled wreck.
I put down a few cups of coffee and headed out to the race.
The course had dried out pretty well, and the reversed version eliminated the run-up by the river, which lead to some fast racing.
The start was hectic. We were into the river-side singletrack in about twenty seconds, so people were all over the place trying to get in and avoid the inevitable bottle-neck. I was able to get a good spot going, and actually was able to hang onto the super fast guys for almost a lap. Then big suprise; they left me in the freakin' dust.
After that, I pretty much focused on riding my own race. Trying not to blow up, maintain my position and most importantly, not fall all over the place. To my dismay, I was pretty successful. I was able to somehow fight off Ross Clark, and Rudy, which I thank the Great Pumpkin for such a miracle.
Lake Effect had a great weekend, with a strong presence on the podium in both the A's and B's both days. Good job to everyone that raced!
I ended up with ninth on the day. Hopefully I can take my excitement about this and use it to bust ass at Iceman this weekend.
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