chicks and cross
Seriously.
Aside from you Portlanders, have you ever seen 100+ ladies line up to ride circles on a muddy piece of dairy property? That's awesome.
Today was my first Cross Crusade, ever, and it easily lived up to any expectations I'd had about what 'cross in Portland was going to be about.
It was slick but not too muddy when the ladies were racing, cool but not too chilly, and the crowds were off the chain. Rawkus comes to mind, but cheery, at the same time.
I could barely warm up for worry of missing out on the spectacle of the event itself.
The skies had yet to open up properly during the earlier categories and the Alpenrose course threatened to become fast and tacky...so they kept us on the line for an extra 10-15 minutes until it began to rain.
Proper.
Last year at Starcross I hit the deck turning onto the velodrome....even though we're not able to preride the course, it didn't take a rocket scientist to spot the transition/90* turn from grass to muddy velodrome as being a slick one. Right about the time the cerebellum was mumbling "careful, sager", I hit the deck.
This was my first authentic 'cross ride on the new Litespeed, not counting last week's win in Salem, and last week's thumping in Gresham. Like Wells would say, man...this bike is sweet. I'll do a review later.
Today was muddy, bumpy, slick, and full of entertaining fans and even more entertaining, off camber, greasy/clay downhill u-turns. Since I crashed out of the front group on the velodrome, and Trebon was going to throttle those guys anyway up front, it was an hour of fun and two wheel mud drifts for me. Warm enough to not get grumpy, wet and slippery enough to keep it pure comedy.
With a lap and a half to go, since the gap to the leader's wasn't growing, I gave it a go and made it across to Tonkin and the crew up front...and sort-semi-accidentally body checked one of the lead group's riders while he ran, and I rode, into the lead.
A lap later, though I wasn't the fastest guy out there, somehow, I won. Cool, eh?
Thanks, folks, for heckling me relentlessly for not givin'r out there early on. I'm even shouldering the bike now and racing without water, if you can believe that...and having fun.
Aside from you Portlanders, have you ever seen 100+ ladies line up to ride circles on a muddy piece of dairy property? That's awesome.
Today was my first Cross Crusade, ever, and it easily lived up to any expectations I'd had about what 'cross in Portland was going to be about.
It was slick but not too muddy when the ladies were racing, cool but not too chilly, and the crowds were off the chain. Rawkus comes to mind, but cheery, at the same time.
I could barely warm up for worry of missing out on the spectacle of the event itself.
The skies had yet to open up properly during the earlier categories and the Alpenrose course threatened to become fast and tacky...so they kept us on the line for an extra 10-15 minutes until it began to rain.
Proper.
Last year at Starcross I hit the deck turning onto the velodrome....even though we're not able to preride the course, it didn't take a rocket scientist to spot the transition/90* turn from grass to muddy velodrome as being a slick one. Right about the time the cerebellum was mumbling "careful, sager", I hit the deck.
This was my first authentic 'cross ride on the new Litespeed, not counting last week's win in Salem, and last week's thumping in Gresham. Like Wells would say, man...this bike is sweet. I'll do a review later.
Today was muddy, bumpy, slick, and full of entertaining fans and even more entertaining, off camber, greasy/clay downhill u-turns. Since I crashed out of the front group on the velodrome, and Trebon was going to throttle those guys anyway up front, it was an hour of fun and two wheel mud drifts for me. Warm enough to not get grumpy, wet and slippery enough to keep it pure comedy.
With a lap and a half to go, since the gap to the leader's wasn't growing, I gave it a go and made it across to Tonkin and the crew up front...and sort-semi-accidentally body checked one of the lead group's riders while he ran, and I rode, into the lead.
A lap later, though I wasn't the fastest guy out there, somehow, I won. Cool, eh?
Thanks, folks, for heckling me relentlessly for not givin'r out there early on. I'm even shouldering the bike now and racing without water, if you can believe that...and having fun.
posted by jsager at 10:24 PM
6 Comments:
badass...a big fat "W" and, no, not that douche who's job ends in 105 days. and at one of the cradles of cross
congrats!
g
nice.we had 11 ladies at bamacross #1 which may be equal to 100 in the nw?
the only people in 'bama that should be wearing spandex are women.
And the ladies look good wearing it too!
From what I saw on Velonews.com you did well. Congrats on the win there Mr. First-timer. Nice new bike too.
Great blog...
I did an official count of our ladies race this morning. 200+ (201) women lined up. Outstanding!
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