Cyclocross

I should expand on the last post, since it was one made out of frustration. I thought I did okay in the last race, Blind Date; it turns out I did pretty badly. I am just not very good at this subset of the sport. I am not aggressive enough on the terrain; I am not fit enough to sustain the effort necessary to finish anywhere close to the front. These are just facts.

Can I do better?

Who knows. And at this point, who cares? I am having fun, of sorts. I am learning to control my bike better. I get a weekly hard workout to remind my body and mind how to go hard. That'll be essential when it comes to intervals in a few short weeks.

I have been racing since February this year. So I am not talented in cyclocross. Should I downgrade *gulp* to the C field? Hell no. I am a cat 3 on the road, I'm not going to race with the noobs just because I might finish closer to the front of the field! Am I going to quite racing 'cross? Well, I'm not going to go out of my way to race like I do for road and track, but I'll race when I get the chance. It's a fun time and it's a fun style of race. I wish I could get out more to the Cross Crusades, but they are on Sundays and, like I said earlier, I am not really going out of my way to race; I nominally work at the restaurant on Sundays and asking for a traded day will be going out of my way.

Ultimately, while cyclocross is fun, it is not a focus of my bike racing. I ride a crappy bike, I ride like a crappy rider, and I have no fitness at this time of year. But fun is fun and not every bike race has to be about winning. That said, my bike is gradually becoming less of an agglomeration of random parts and more like a race quality bike, and my skill with riding on dirt is gradually, slowly, getting better. Who knows, next year I might actually train a little for this time of the season. I mean, I can peak three times a year, right?

Nevermind

Countersteering helps a lot, but it's no panacea. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that my 'cross results are so poor, since I haven't done any real training other than racing since July.

Counter-Steering

After practicing on some trails today, I am now convinced that this, or rather the lack of this, is 9/10ths of the reason why I suck at cross.

Road racers don't really pay much attention to it, except in crits when you are trying to corner at 30mph. On a cross bike, it's much more important because everything is so floppy. The tires are floppy, the terrain is floppy, and so you really need to flop the wheel over in a turn. I can't believe I haven't thought about this before! I went through this whole cournter-steering thing before when practicing crit cornering earlier this year.

Why is it so important? When you turn, your center of gravity needs to be to the inside of your wheels. Now, if you are to turn at all, you have to counter-steer at least a little; it's the only way you can possibly stay balanced in a turn. However, if you set into a turn without an explicit counter-steer, you end up very upright and are essentially balancing your bike by moving your body around. SLOW. Any bump or rut and you have to physically shift positions on your bike to stay balanced. Not terribly stable.

Contrast this to setting into a turn witha good counter-steer. Your weight while your body is neutral on the bike is already inside the tires. To counteract any bump or slide, all you do is steer, which your reactions do automatically.

That's my theory anyway. We'll see how it works come Blind Date on Wednesday. It's very possible that I really do just simply suck at this.

The Experiment in Cross is DONE!

Suffice it to say, I suck at 'cross, but it's a ton of fun and now it's time to exit the party and let the people who are actually good at this sport do their thing with the championships and USGP and all that while I go and restore the "home goodwill fund" and "work goodwill fund" so I have lots in the bank by the time the road season starts.  Also, I'm slow and fat and need a good head start on the rest of the Cat3 field so I can actually be competitive come March.

Astoria was a blast with the team all holed up in a house on a pier.  I drew one of the lucky straws and got to sleep on the floor.  I had assumed it was carpet... but everyone knows that hardwood is easier to care for and prettier to look at.  Let's just say I awoke on Sunday morning with a real straight back.

Saturday was the serious race... which of course meant that it was this race where I blasted past people on one of my better starts and into the first section of mud and promptly flatted my front tire.  Talk about taking the wind out of your sails.  Since I was on tubies, I can still ride, so I rode the bike to the pit where neutral support took a gajillion years to put my new wheel on (which was pumped up to, like, 100psi) and included a full brake job along the way.  (Even if it sounds like I'm complaining... well, they were actually great and having neutral support is awesome even if I found first hand why it's probably of some importance to bring your own wheels to the pit.)  When I finally made it back on course, there was no one in sight.  I eventually picked off 10 of the weakest 'crossers in the B field and called it a day.

Sunday was a blast.  I had a great costume that was totally team spec'ed and B. Johnson doctor-cum-engineer modified so I could actually see and breath.  It was a "Guy Fawkes" mask, wig, and hat a la "V for Vendetta" and even though I could see and breath, unlike some of my other teammates who were without the Doc. Johnson approved modifications, it still sucked to race in it.  Astoria convinced me that I am just bad at all the things 'crossers are supposed to be good at, and I'm not like some of my teammates who have the fitness to make up for it.  But I had a lot of fun.

I have a feeling that, in the future, unless I have a series standing that I am protecting, my 'cross season will end with Astoria.  The costume race is an awesome cap to the short off-season-season and there's some good symmetricality (I think I just made this word up - probably supposed to be "symmetry") to the season with it being on Halloween.  Now to hunker down in the bat cave and start doing intervals and suffering through 3 hour rides in the rain.

Evolution is...

First race: Pain on the Peak: 2nd to last

Second race: Hood River DX, day two: 5th from last

(Third race: Blind Date #1: DNF -- doesn't count; flat)

Fourth race: Battle at Barlow: 14th from last

Fifth race: Blind Date #2: 38th out of 66, mid-pack


...moving up in life.

Cyclocross!

So, with two mediocre 'cross races under my belt for the season; where do I stand in this wild and wacky sport? In the C's last year, I was masking a lot of mediocre bike handling skills with fitness. The guys I was racing against were Cat4/5 riders with not a lot of fitness but perhaps some mountain biking background. Yes, my handling skills were mediocre, but I could compete reasonably well simply because I was fitter than most of the field.

Now, in the B's, that's no longer the case. Everyone is just as fit or fitter (probably the latter), and they have the bike handling skills to match. So I come in close to DFL in both races this year and it's because of my shitty handling skills.

First tick off the list though, came last night. I took my 'cross bike, complete with dirt gearing and tires, on my commute to work. First off, riding crappy roads with big tires is fun! Come the off season, now that I have a real rain bike that is not my cross bike, I'm going to keep the big tires on the cross bike and use it for short commuting and some gravel road rides.

Anyway, though the day I was determined to find some time to practice 'cross, which really was short for "figure out how to get my ass back on my bike after dismounting without killing myself." Days are getting shorter and I wanted to ride the commute, so I didn't get to practice until I got home and was in my driveway.

I figured that what was holding me back with the remount was a mental tick. I was smooth enough at very slow speed where I can get on my bike without my foot leaving the ground. But as soon as I was above a single step, I had to dab my foot on the remount. It's kind of like track standing (which I can do). A rider learns to go slower and slower until he is damned near stopped. But there is a mental catch the moment he has to transition to letting his bike roll backwards on him. Similar here. I can remount as long as my foot stays on the ground as I hit the saddle, but there is a mental catch when I need to actually land on the saddle proper.

Last night, I got over it.

I reasoned that, since it was a mental block preventing me from remounting, I needed a mental trick to get over it. So I stood next to my bike, in the driveway, and mentally drew a line on the ground. Past that line, there is a pool of lava (corny, I know). The only way through it was to roll through on my bike (special bike; must be, or at least the wheels). Dab my foot and I'd lose it. The idea is I'll take half a step with my left foot leading, and kind of hop a little to get in the air and land on the saddle.

First time, lost the foot to the lava.

Second time... holy shit, I did it. Slower than walking pace, but I clearly was past the "catch." It was just a little hop, and I was barely rolling after I landed on the saddle, but I did it.

I do it again.

And again.

Now I add a full stride into the remount. It worked!

I do it again.

And again. The inside of my thigh is starting to get a bruise.

Finally I take a breath, and remount at a full run. Not a full full run like in a race, but a full run.

It works.

Suddenly I'm feeling a bit better about 'cross...