100% pro tire art.
I maintain that any problem involving finding an optimal path through a series of obsticles can be solved using the path set by pro cross racers.
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less desire lines, more de tire lines?
Or lofting a spline through the points @crowding (did enjoy that article a bunch)
Thanks to the way it played out yesterday, there was almost nothing but footprints to be seen there today.
Now that I’ve had a chance to watch the videos, I can see how that patch of rain we got between the men’s and women’s races made such a huge difference in the course.
Jingle Cross was kind of fucked this year. All of the tactical stuff got washed out and it just just a lot of running through sopping clay and cow shit, which is just hard without being fun. (This is coming from someone who doesn’t run at all, so maybe someone else enjoyed it.) The photos are always epic, though. 5lbs of mud on each shoe and 10lbs on the drive train. Little kids losing shoes and socks along the way.
Watching Katie Keough (a Wisconsin local) win a World Cup was super fun, and watching Sophie de Boer pour it on, fighting for 2nd and finishing 4th was tremendous to watch, if ultimately disappointing for her.
Day 3 (my second day of racing) was more fun, maybe because I had grown to accept what the race was going to be, but I also felt a lot more confident as the race progressed. The burn at the back of my calves on the march up Mt. Krumpit, though…
Also @b-roll shouting something about “hand ups” at the top of it, but when I turned around to grab it, he had nothing in his hands but a fist bump. Stone cold!
I got a chance to chat with Mark and Katie Compton about my viral video of her rolling and re-installing the tubular tire. They were baffled by why everyone was so into it. I guess they saw it as an unfortunate error, where most other people saw it as an inspirational strong-woman underdog story. But Mark said she gained like 2,000 more followers from that vid.
Not sure I’ll go back next year, but who knows what’ll happen when I catch cross fever.
I did a race in Maine, Deer Farm CX. At a real deer farm, rode through real deer turds. Also stomped through peat, which gets wetter and stickier the more action it sees. Takes forever to clean off.
Met Laura Van Gilder, and watched her decimate everyone.
Myself exiting the peat:
Farm kittens:
My races sucked; burped a front tire and repeatedly dropped chain. I’ve been using a White Ind eccentric hub for about 1 year, climbing steep stuff, and it’s only recently giving me trouble. I’m going to grease the bolts and burn some sage.
Oh dear–I never meant to lead you on about a handup. That’s a subject I take pretty seriously. I don’t recall what I said but the word “handup” was in there somewhere. Selective hearing during killer exertions, I suppose. #oweyouone
It sounded like you said hand up, but when I turned around you were offering a fist bump. Sam H (from Rev) promised a hand up at the last Trek race, but I was left hanging there, too. He made it up to me with a lot of One Barrel Rev beer.
One day I’ll be victorious.
Rev will pay you back handsomely–do you happen to like 4-Loko?
I remember a few off-hand comments from last year (asking a little boy if he has a girlfriend) and heard a couple this year (asking a woman if she’s single, referring to Katie Compton’s tubegate by saying, “This is tough even for a MALE mechanic.”)
I understand it’s difficult to fill 12 hours a day across 3 days with entertaining babble, but I feel like a lot of these problems could be mitigated simply by getting a woman on the mic every once in a while.
My race in Grafton was frustrating. I had a great start, and lead out the race for about a lap, choosing the butteriest lines. I was overtaken on the big climb towards the end of the lap, but. I was sitting pretty comfortably in 2nd, when I flatted.
Luckily I was 50 feet from the pit, but I don’t have a pit bike and our pit guy is not the fastest. He had to change the disc rotor so I could borrow a wheel, and by the time he did, the podium had passed.
Which I guess was fine because when I tried to shift back into a reasonable gear to get going I found my shifter had also shit the bed. So then we pulled my Time pedals off my bike and installed them onto a janky pit bike.
All hope of a podium was lost, so I just had fun in the mud for the next lap and a half.
2nd weekend of double races. It hurts, but feels better since I can actually finish mid pack in 4s on my single speed. Driving for an hour to finish in the bottom 10 every weekend gets old.
The struggle is real:
2 cross races in the works. Have one set for Oct 20th and then state champs Dec 1st (usac). Jeeze, this is super stressful. Trying to line up permits, all the stuff with usac, vendors, getting companies to COMMIT to sponsorship (whether money or prizes), etc. I need to ride more and do this less.
that looks too much like a smile
try again
That’s an Amy-style pain cave grin. We went up this 12ft high kicker hill after a long speed sucking packed gravel section 3 times per lap. This was probably the 20th time up it that day.
aka the grinace
THAT’S more like it!