Cyclocross round #3

Another week and another race, although this time the weather was fantastic.

Race #3 was held at Harvard Park in Mountain View.  This week we arrived early and managed to watch all the races.
See here for Race 2 and Race 1 reports.

Course description 

The course starts with a descent and then a climb followed by another descent which brought you into a small ditch crossing.  Pre ride discussion was if it was better to ride or dismount.  Thinking it could potentially end up looking something like this.

Go on Dean....... But watch your foehead next time lol
Posted by Simon Lagier on Sunday, 26 February 2012

We all came to the conclusion that a dismount would be the fastest way across.

Josh proving it could be jumped on a mountain bike

Following this we descended again and took a short forced run up due to barrier placement.  We then descended again before climbing up to the flat section of the course.  After negotiating a tricky left hand bend then a switch back on roots around a couple of trees the course was a flat out grass ride to the far end of the course, aside from a quick descent on gravel with a awkward right turn at the bottom.

We climbed up then hit the pavement back to the start/finish area.  Two more hairpin turns and a pair of barriers separating us from the lap/finish line. 

The Junior race

Fiona's race went really well, the Juniors rode a modified course and seemed to have a lot of fun whilst doing it, it probably helped that It was sunny and they didn't have to negotiate any steep descents which are not really Fiona's strong points. In fact I would go as far as to say if it was slightly downhill she will be off and walking and crying at me, we may have to ride some Hillside trails to get her confidence back up.

Juniors start

Waling the descent though I think she is capable of riding this. 

Running up the descent. 

slowing down some people on their warm up lap

full speed ahead!

My race

Due to the real lap starting with a descent, when racing we negotiate the second half of the course first before we go into real laps.  I had a pretty good race, although I was stung by a bee on lap two which really put me off my game for that lap, although crunching the data afterwards it didn't really slow me down.
I also managed to land on my seat badly and knock it out of alignment (nose up) on lap two as well I think, this is not my first time with this type of seat bolt failing on me in the same way though I don't think I can do much about it aside from over-tightening it.  Its not like I have any weight left to lose.
Overall a good race and a lot less fading towards the end of the race this time, although I was still lapped.  I am again happy with my riding, still loving my bike although need to work out the seat issue. I also need to practice my remounts this week as again that extra step just won't go away, time to break out a video camera and analyse what I am doing wrong.

Here are a couple of shots of me racing thanks to Megan for taking them and looking after Fiona whilst I raced!
Full album of all the fun can be found here

leaping over the grand canyon

remounted before more descending

getting lapped by Jeff and Josh

Trying to hang on to the finish. 

And here is the Strava data, I think if you look at my heart rate you will see I was working perhaps a little to hard.

Results, if you don't like clicking on links.... I got 11th place surpassing all my expectations for this years season... still working on not getting lapped though.
And finally here is a short edit of the race put together by Christina Grande,

Arctic Cross from Christina Grande on Vimeo.