Sun and beer and fun and racing. Crusade race #3
Second year at the Sherwood Equestrian Center in Sherwood. Last year it was a bumpy, horse-trodden not-quite-so-much-fun venue.
This year, however, was awesome. The promoters rearranged the course a little, graded sections, added a new run-up, and kept the leg-searing gravel road climb. Plus the new beer sponsor showed up with a few kegs and a purchase of a $5 pint glass got you free refills!
Sweet.
The course was fun (except for that run-up on lap number 5) and featured some nice flat sweeping turns and a few hairpins. I had a blast keeping the inside line and accelerating out. Pure buzz.
Will Cortez skipped the Sherwood race in favor of the NinKrossi up in Washougal, WA and really ripped the legs of the competition.
Second turn just after the start. I'm hunting for a good line.
Crossniacs represent at 24hr race
Over Memorial Weekend, Allen Goldbeck and I made the 6.5 hr drive from the Portland Metro to Spokane, WA for the 24hrs of Round and Round race. We met up with 3 other guys (all friends of Allen) who made a similar 6+ hr drive from the Seattle/Tacoma area of western Washington.
Friday Night (5/28):
Set up the tents and as a group pre-rode the course with no lights. We made it back by 9pm and could still see which one might think portends of beautiful weather…not so.
The course:
- distance: 14.7 miles
- technically: moderate…pretty rocky at times as evidenced by the number of flats seen
- climbing: 7-8 of them but none longer than 0.25 miles
- aerobically: strenuous
- time to complete: our 5-person team was as fast as 1hr 8min up to 1hr 26min
- average speeds: our 5-person team ranged from 9mph up to 13mph
- attendance: 700+ racers (one unicyclist)
Crossniacs
Saturday/Race Day (5/29):
Race started at Noon with a Le Mans started that I got volunteered for. Why not? I can start my ‘cross training early!
racked before the Le Mans start
cx training
Riding up the hill I just ran up 
Allen HTFU!
Sunday (5/30):
After some calculations, we figured we could try to get all 5 guys 4 laps each, so 20 total for the team. Come Noon on Sunday, we were only able to get 19 so our anchor Doug didn’t get a chance but he was cool just sleeping and drinking 
Nite Rider on hand
Where we handed off
My lap times:
- 1:12:07.143 at Noon on Saturday (this included the Le Mans start…so not bad)
- 1:09:35.629 at about 5:30pm Saturday evening
- 1:19:25.089 at 12:45am-ish on Sunday (this was my only night lap and one I’ll never forget…so beautiful…and only the 2nd time ever I’ve mtn biked at night)
- 1:15:27.249 at 7am-ish on Sunday (I was really happy with this lap time as I was fighting cramps in both quads, my back and my left arm)
Over the course of the race, we each could not have gotten more than 4 hrs of sleep. I know my figure was more like 2.5hrs
-will
Pac NW AllStarz
Crossniacs Oregon Syndicate
Cyclists: We are so predictable…and such snobs!
Found links to these videos on the Oregon Bike Racing mailing list. This is too good and totally worth a few minutes of your time. Click on the pics to see the vids.
Post or Pre-Ride
Only gets funnier...
We’ll see you soon Wah for USGP.
Dec 5th & 6th
The current 10-day forecast calls for Highs in the low 40s, Lows in the high 30s and showers = mud + mud + mud
-buddha
Cyclo Cross Crusade team competition standings update
Uh oh. Looks like we tumbled a few spots. HTFU. That is all.
This is still for fun. And subject to computer verification and paid dues.
Candi
1 Hammer Velo 58
2 Sorella Forte 62
3 Cyclepath Racing 72
4 mountain View Cycles 90
5 River City Bicycles 96
6 bicycleattorney 104
7 Portland Velo 121
8 Specialized/River City Bicycles 142
9 Team S&M 152
10 Sunnyside Sports 170
11 Gentle Lovers 180
12 Team Lazy Tarantulas 220
13 Tireless Velo 236
14 Yakima Bike Vigilantes 239
15 Bend Bike and Sport 243
16 Ironclad Performance Wear 247
17 webcyclery 247
18 BBC 324
19 Showers Pass 324
20 Artisan Family Racing 364
21 Team Beer 386
22 Pacific Power/Blue Sky 396
23 Veloce 405
24 Therapeutic Associates Cycling/GENR8 409
25 Team Rose City 428
26 filth & Fury 442
27 Half Fast Velo 462
28 Guinness cycling 479
29 Revolver Cascadia 541
30 Bike City Racing 553
31 Team Oregon 560
32 Cyclecone 561
33 Hutch’s 580
34 Grundelbruiser 584
35 Capitol Subaru Cycling 607
36 Word/RCB 632
37 Super Relax 634
38 Signal Cycles 636
39 Veloforma 641
40 Organic Athlete 657
41 Staccato Gelato 664
42 DeSalvo Custom cycles 668
43 The Royal Family 676
44 Pacificpedaling.com 680
45 Vanilla Workshop-Speedvagen Racing 695
46 HUP United 704
47 Veloshop 704
48 HTFU 706
49 NoMad Race Club 716
50 Team Awesome 761
51 Portland Bicycle Studio 762
52 Ten Guys Named Alex 766
53 NoLimitz/ICE 769
54 Capitol Velo 786
55 Chinook cycling 788
56 Motordome 792
57 Hudz/Subaru 806
58 Bridgetown Velo 811
59 Buy Local 815
60 Hank Built 816
61 Team Dirt 817
62 OSU 836
63 Finnegan’s Toys 858
64 Green Submarine Records 859
65 Rapha Racing 859
66 Pdxcross 869
67 Ruckus Test Team 872
68 Bike Gallery 875
69 PSU 886
70 HP Chiro 892
71 Waterfront Bikes 893
72 Southtown Velo 895
73 Team cthulhu 898
74 CAPA Cycling 905
75 Flywheel Bicycle 908
76 Coffee Plant 910
77 Bike Central 913
78 Fred Meyer 918
79 Land Rover-ORBEA Benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation 92280 Eye Health NW 930
81 Landshark 935
82 Courage Cycles 938
83 3 Rivers Racing 943
84 IRA Ryan Cycles 945
85 rogue Bicycle Works 946
86 Exisistential Velo 960
87 Sprout Cycles 1008
88 Crossniacs 1013
89 Bob’s Red Mill 1016
90 Code 3 Racing 1020
91 Cedar Mill Velo 1024
Oregon Cyclocross Action: Alpenrose “Blind Date” #3
It was dark so there’s not much to say. I pretty much navigated by bumping into the cones– If I felt them bumping my left foot I drifted right; bumping on the right and I drifted left. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Jim had a bit of bad luck– a little chain suck resulted in a twisted chain.
Results will be posted in a day or two when OBRA makes them available. Next week we’re going to be all bling-blonged out with blinky lights and stuff.
Jim discovers that "just jammin' on it" does not fix chain problems.
Oregon Action: Cross Crusade #1
Brian looking for a little more speed on the Velodrome apron. Photo: Carol Mikkelson, flickr.com/photos/carolmikkelson
A few days of light rain prior to Sunday’s opener of the Cross Crusade series had me hopeful for some mud at Alpenrose dairy. Not so. We wound up having “excellent” weather– sun and mild temps in the high 50′s/low 60′s. Since my family was coming along this was indeed perfect weather.
The course was not dusty which was a plus, but all the bumps were there out in the back straightaway.
The Alpenrose race always seems to be the most highly attended, likely due to its close proximity to downtown Portland, and this year saw a NEW record set for attendance — 1438 racers, not including the huge crowd of spectators — handily breaking last year’s record of 1267. Where do all of these people come from?
Anyway– parking was a mess and we rolled in about 10 minuted before my Master B race. Spying fellow Crossniac Jim Hendricks, I pulled up seeking help locating parking and was instead treated to a view of shirtless manflesh. Hurrying on my wife spotted a vacant parking spot. After shearing off the side view mirrors I hustled everybody out the windows, threw the cars keys at my wife, waved to my son and sprinted to the registration shack to barely, I mean barely, get my registration in for the race.
Caffeine overload plus Pre-Race Bladder Syndrome forced my to the row of Honey Buckets. (Ah! That self-sponsored racer’s home-away-from-home!) After what seemed like hours (but what was less than 5 minutes) I rolled up the back of a field of 248 racers (Master B, Master 50+, and Junior men). I had missed the lottery-style call up based on race numbers (I should have been in the very first group!). Ever the humble push-over I accepted my fate as just.
The start was typical Cross Crusade #1 Alpenrose Wal-Mart After Thanksgiving Sale stampede.
Fortunately the course designers had done a pretty good job and bottlenecks were greatly reduced.
Time for an “Unfortunately/Fortunately” story!
Unfortunately, halfway through my race I flatted. Fortunately I was almost to the pits! Unfortunately, in my haste to get to registration I had left my pit wheels in the car. Fortunately there was neutral tech support provided by Shimano! Unfortunately I was hypoxic and the pit officials had to walk me over to the wheels and actually put one in my hands. Fortunately I was able to get the wheels changed! Unfortunately the Dura-Ace wheel (nice wheel, btw) had a fat-ass tire on it and was rubbing on my brake pads! Fortunately I had plan. Unfortunately it involved leaving the rear brakes disconnected– whee! Fortunately the Shimano tech twiddled with my brakes, told me I had the wrong kind of brake pads (Get away from my Kool-Stop Eagle Claw II’s shut up!) and sent me on my merry way.
After two more laps I struggled back to finish DFL. Wait what? How could I push until I saw stars to finish DFL… ow wait. In my category. There were still hundreds and hundreds of racers out there.
So. DFL my first race in Crossniac colors. 123 out of 123 (There were two that DNF.) But I finished with a smile and squeak of the shark horn and ON THE SAME LAP AS THE WINNER. So I was DFL but not lapped. Booyah.
Fellow PacNW Crossniac Will Cortez had finished 88th in a field of 159 Cat C’s (Zoinks!), Jim Hendricks was 42nd out of 58 Clydesdales, and Guy Smith was 180 out of 187 Master C’s (Double Zoinks!!)
Next up: Rainier.
Mr. Hendricks charging the Alpenrose run up. Photo: Bruce McCammon bpmphotography.com