Haunted 'cross weekend - Boulder Cup 'cross

After having a darn good time for a month or so after the MTB season ended, the Giant Team figured it was time to start doing some proper ‘cross racing. Now, other than the fact that we like Cyclocross and think the races are entertaining, we’ve also got a bit of an ulterior motive. This being UCI Points. Boring I know, but necessary if we’re to be able to roll down the street to the National Championships in Bend and not start in the cheap seats, therefore not really starting at all. So here we are, flying to Boulder, CO for a NACT Series weekend.

Normally Cyclocross in Boulder is a well-attended affair that ends up being a bit lame in term of conditions and courses. They do a great job racing in some cool city parks, but it’s inevitably 70 degrees and dusty dry. By all accounts it looked like that would be the case this year until about four days before the event. I even had a pair of Michelin Jet tires all set up with some Stan’s Tubeless rim strips on the assumption that it’d be dry and fast. This turned out a bit optimistic (or pessimistic depending on how you love the slop) as I figured out by looking at the NOAA forecast for the Front Range a few days before we hopped on a plane. It went something like this “A strong low pressure system will approach the Rockies on Wednesday, then stall as it crosses onto the high plains of eastern CO for a period of over 24 hours. During this period anywhere from 12 to 36” of snow will fall in the foothills and on the plains.” Awesome. So we’d have some snow to make things interesting at least…

Upon landing at DIA Friday afternoon, our plane taxied through slushy piles of snow under sunny skies. Hmm. Definitely a lot of snow, and definitely sunny and warm. This could work out pretty well… And well it did, as we rocked up to the Longmont Haunted Cross venue it was painfully obvious from the bikes of racers finished that we’d have some slime on our hands. And faces…

We did some recce on the course and decided that Mud tires would be the go, obviously, then set about warming up in our special October 31 track suits… Carl, on his half dozen drives from Bend to Redmond with Rally Car parts in tow, had stopped by “The Fun Farm”, one of those eccentric places that every town has and can always be expected to come to life around the holidays. He left a half hour later with some sweet photos of old Winnebagos and a pair of costumes for our warm-up. He was a foam rendition of a can of SPAM and I was the missing person on a carton of milk. Very cozy yet with great range of motion…

Unfortunately, we didn’t want to lose our $20 deposit on the get-ups, or crash when something got tangled in the re-mounting process so we ditched the fun on the start line and got down to business. I hadn’t pedaled hard (er than necessary to have done a bunch of huge sweet MTB rides with a single-ring) since Cross Vegas so I reckoned when I caught up to Carl (who’s been doing supplemental Oxygen intervals) I’d be lucky to hang with him for a while and move up through the field. He must have been tired from working out so hard or I must have been riding especially smooth through the slick turns and grinding uphill bogs because I was soon moving up solidly and after about half the race was in a position to catch the second/third duo of Jeremy Powers and Jamie Driscoll. This I did and, after informing them that I was obviously no threat to their Teammate and race leader Tim Johnson, promptly rode past to see if they’d hang on. Unfortunately, just as I was processing the thought that “I can totally get second” I got a surprise bounce re-mounting after the roughest barriers known to man and kicked a key component of my bike into uselessness. A stop to fix that and the ensuing (unrelated) stomach cramps and I was back in 4th again, where I would dangle for the rest of the race.

Meanwhile, Carl was timing each of his three (metal-edged walkway-induced) flat tires perfectly to coincide with the pit exit so as to have to ride a half-lap flat before a bike change. Well played, Carl. He wound up 16th. Not bad for a can of SPAM…

Our female counterpart Kelli Emmett rode solid in slightly wetter conditions (thanks for drying out the track) to take the final podium position in 5th. She did get beat by her longtime training partner and recently un-retired Alison Dunlap though… Shoot.
Instead of staying out all night in our sweet costumes we went home at a reasonable hour and watched the Red Bull Romaniacs Moto DVD to relax. This whole “relaxing” thing is quite pleasant. The night before was The Big Lebowski on Koenig’s Flat-Screen. Thanks for letting us wreck your house, Mike, sorry we were smart enough to figure out the entertainment system…

This kind of preparation had me convinced that I’d be a player on Sunday. Wrong, should’ve stayed out late… Carl came around though, starting strong and riding guys off his wheel in 6th place for the duration of a much different race. The proposed venue at Harlow Platts Park in Boulder Proper was scratched due to the snow cover and obvious fact that it’d get trashed if a thousand people rode their cross bikes around all day. The backup venue was north of town at the Boulder Reservoir. I was suspicious when the email announcing the change included a statement that might as well have read “we know you’ve raced here dozens of times and it sucks, so if you want your money back to buy more drinks on Saturday night we completely understand.” I didn’t think it was THAT bad, a bunch of fast bumpy corners with an interesting, completely dry, surface connected a few classic beach sand sections, all rideable, but none easy. The Boulder crowd was out in force on a beautiful afternoon, so that makes racing pretty much anywhere awesome. Too bad I was tired. While Carl was holding things down up in the mix I was soldiering slowly up from a 20-something start, riding some sand for fun and otherwise not really doing much. Eventually I got to 10th on the last lap with a sweet drift that tricked Jake from Mafia Racing into doing the same and subsequently crashing. We reminisced over a PBR at the finish, no hard feelings…

Once again Emmett ended up fifth, but this time she did it the hard way, battling for second (which is kind of a win when Katie Compton is in the house) with Amy Dombroski for most of the race before she finally cracked with two to go. Once again getting passed by Alison on the last lap… Dang it. Again.
Since it got dark at five for the first time this year (suck) we retired to Steve’s (our stand-in mechanic for the weekend, who did a bang-up job) house to pack bikes and hit dinner at a reasonable hour. Even if I won nothing else on the weekend, I was the undisputed victor of dinner when my Lamb Shank rolled out of the kitchen at The Med… I have a rule, if Lamb Shank is on the menu, get it!