Working with the Trek factory grounds for the last couple of years, my team has had the luxury of staking it all the weekend before, then taping the day before. Luxury.
Downside was Trek employees got a preview. Fun upside was we knew that and kind of fucked with them with how we set up the stakes…
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I feel for you having spent too many days chalk spraying the course the night before, then being there pre sunrise to stake and tape, always fighting NIMBY dog walkers who consider it their park and would just walk across the course mid race in defiance (and submit complaints to council constantly), then tearing it down as the sun set.
Those dog walkers really hated me the year I convinced SRAM to pony up for a “flyover” that I had built from scaffolding.
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Very Mad Max, but needs more skulls.
And a doof warrior. I know a guy.
there was a bush doof going on near one of the races once.
I did dream of getting a thrash metal setup hidden in the foliage at the far end of a course so the riders would pop around a corner confronted by some helicoptering riffage.
The halloween night race with a long pavilion tent filled with smoke machines that had kids with super soakers at the exit was pretty good.
In the end I was only in it for the kids racing and #dogsofddcx
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I ran out of the bushes, wearing a mask and overalls with a revving chainsaw once. Never even got a glance from the riders…
Sun Prairie Cup was a challenging race. At the beginning of the day, everywhere you see green and brown was white with snow. That all melted and turned into frozen ground topped with the slickest mud.
I pre-rode 3 hours before my race and found the lines. Then I pre-rode again 1.5 hours later and saw everything had devolved. By the time I got on the course it was all just trash.
I could not keep myself upright in any corner, my chain dropped several times due to the accumulation of mud, and some sections were so sticky I was brought to a standstill.
25% of every pedal stroke was lost because mud stuck to my tires (18psi) negating any grip they had. I wish I could have weighed my bike at the end because it must’ve been 10 lbs heavier. Hauling it over the barriers was A CHORE.
I finished 11/13, but I had a good time, both racing AND watching the carnage develop throughout the day.
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Did my two races this weekend. Managed a top 10 in cat 4 on my ss. But only 16 people showed up. I still would have been top half of the race had been bigger. Was pretty far back in ss, but the course was a tough one to double up on. Sticky mud all over and lots of slick corners. A few spots with really deep ruts. The toughest run-up of the series that had a bumpy, uphill run-in to kill all your momentum. The hill itself was 30-40ft vertical and super steep. Luckily the grip was good with toe spikes. On the other side of the course there was another climb that was tough on the first lap and became nearly impossible on the last lap of my second race.
Glad that’s over. Next weekend is usually the last race of the season. But because Nats is here this year, there’s another race at the Nats course the week after. I think I’m gonna skip that one.
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Here’s the slip-n-slidey, crashy-crashy recap from Sun Prairie this past weekend.
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Excellent crossing today. Rain in the morning but only about 50 degrees out so not too bad. I raced at 9:30 and the course was a little slick in places. There were one or two spots where the mud was getting deep and I found one 180 corner where it felt faster to run. I was the only person I saw running there in the first race. By the time the elites raced, most of them were running it.
After the first race, the rain stopped and the course started to firm up. Folks were reporting more grip but also slower mud.
Just before the single speed race the rain started again. Every corner was slick as pig snot. The mud that was previously churned up got deep and nasty. Lots of good racing today. A teammate got 2nd in the elite race.
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I have had one hell of a shit season. We setup most of the course on Friday night: all the stakes, the ramps out of the sandpit, sandbags over the curb into the sandpit, etc. and taped the few parts that would have been tricky for someone who didn’t know the course. Get back Saturday morning and someone fucked with all the stakes in the sandpit and a bunch of random ones went missing all over the course. Fixed those then taped the rest and we were actually ready to go 30min before the course was officially open.
Then it came time for the elite 123 race. I got a whole 10 pedal strokes in before I crashed. The ground on the starting straight was uneven from water drainage and in my start, I unweighted the front end at the perfect time to throw my wheel into the divot and went OTB. Chainring got my leg and pedal got my ankle. It was throbbing immediately, but I got up and in two laps I made my way to 3rd when my ankle said no more. It locked up and now it’s all sorts of colors.
I’m ready to call this season a wash.
However, SSCXWC is next weekend and we have a double header weekend for the last race of our series in December.
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HY
25/60 in cat 4 (on my single speed)
50/90 in single speed
I’m feeling good about those results. Not awesome, but better than they’ve been in recent years.
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My last race of the season was this weekend, and while I’m happy to have the break (and so is my Gunnar), I’m also a bit sad that cross is gone for another 9 months.
It was WI State Champs and I started strong. Just before the hole shot I was sitting about 3rd, but right into the corner I slid out and was instantly in the middle of the pack. I still managed to fight my way to 14/36, which is a slightly above average finish for the year. The closest I came to throwing up (but I didn’t). I’ll take it.
The terrain was wacky through the whole day, starting with frozen solid ruts (still dug in from Trek CX Cup in September) that transitioned into greasy mud, that eventually devolved into sticky, sloppy stuff and finally, by the last race of the day dried out into a kind of tacky peanut butter.
The course conditions changed every other lap. Sometimes you could ride the off camber or climb the hills, but most of the time you were better off running. Even around simple 180s, it was often way faster to just jump off, turn the corner and jump back on.
I’ll probably get down to watch some of the Regionals in Chicago, but it’s looking unlikely I’ll be able to make it out to Nationals. It’s just the wrong time of year to spend that kind of money.
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SSCXWCUT was more rad than I had thought it would be. I had my reservations and they were confirmed when I went out to assemble our flyover. The course was on private property…that’s completely undeveloped, save for some gravel roads. There were sharp lava rocks everywhere, tons of sagebrush, and overall, not a very welcoming course. HOWEVER, it rained hard for 2 days before and that changed so much of the course in a great way. Mud everywhere. The softpack singletrack was bedded in and became awesome. The debauchery of SSCXWC had the course change nearly every lap. Stuff got more narrow, moved over into sections of boulders, the ramp for the trailer we rode through disappeared, random car tires appeared, and on top of that, we had to do the course backwards from what everyone had ridden for 3 days (this was actually my plan from the get-go. I said fuck it, I’m gonna go the opposite direction). The course was still pretty shoddily taped, but that was due to the ground being hard as shit (I broke 8 plastic tent stakes trying to put out my tent) and they were using an impact drill to make pilot holes for stakes. I’m still very glad I switched to gravel tires.
Feats of strength were awesome and I won dildoball. Got enough zip-ties to qualify (needed 4, I got 6), but really pretty much everyone qualified and the men’s champ race was 150 deep.
Nightlife was OKAY. If there were more people than the 200 that registered, it would have not worked at all. The places they chose for after-parties were much too small to even host us. Thursday night, the place we were supposed to go was supposed to be a new brewery that was not yet open, but had arranged with the city to open for the night for the event. A city inspector with a chip on his shoulder shut it down before it started because one of their banisters was ONE INCH TOO LOW. So , we moved across the street and that place was lame. It’s “not a bar,” so you could not stand and drink a beer. Friday night was at a better place, but still just meh. We went to a dive bar for awards and the reveal for next year at the only dive bar in St. Geroge and that place was pretty alright.
Camping was okay, but the promoter should have opened up camping for non-VIP racers. You could not have individual campfires and there was only a burn-barrel. It made us congregate around it and we all had some laughs, but indivdual campsites were cold. We also seemed to be the only group buying firewood.
Next year is in Durango.
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Thanks for the write-up on this. I had wondered how the SSCX party vibe would go down in Utah- sounds like it was basically as expected, but they made the best of a challenging situation. Durango sounds like fun!
Being fewer participants, there was less clique-y-ness, which was awesome. Feats of strength were broken up into groups of 20 and there were people from everywhere within the groups. Everyone got to know eachother and hung out over the weekend. We rode about an 18mile loop with various stops for beers and the feats. Hill climb ala Rock Cobbler style, wheelbarrow race, slow race, sprint (through sand and back, bikesketball, dildoball, and and axe-throwing.
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Oh, Hi, Jill (woman in first photo)!
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Nats course looks like it is holding up ok. Hoping to be there for men’s single speed on sat and the elite races on sun.
One of my teammates got 2nd in the team relay and second in masters 30-34. Both by just a matter of seconds.
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