Monday, December 21, 2009

End/Start of The Year

Oh man cross is all over, but what a race. The course Brad Ross and the rest of the Cyclocross Crusaders set up was absolutely amazing; it threw a little bit of everything at you mud, ice, twisty off cambers, sharp drops and punchy hills.

My race started just as the course started to thaw, so we face a good amount of mud. Everything was working great up until the first corner of the race. Somebody shoved me into a course marker as I was taking the outside line trying to out fox everyone. I picked up my bike, wrenched someone's leg out of it, rode to the pit with crooked bars, and swapped to the spare bike. I really had to get moving, being in last place. Within the first lap I had caught about 7 people. The rest of the race I dug deeper into the pain cave, catching more people. I sprinted out of each corner and braked hard into the next, just barely grazing the course tape as I did. In every corner I could feel the tires start to roll off, or I could feel rocks hitting my rims

In the end I rode up to 7th place, just 5 seconds off of 5th place. It would have been great if I didn't crash and if I didn't have to catch people, but that's 'cross for ya.

Now I am excited to start racing on the road with Team Specialized. I am privileged to be invited to race with such a talented group of individuals. I want to use everything I learned from traveling and racing 'cross and apply it to road racing to make myself and our team better. This is going to be a great season, with the support of Specialized and all our sponsors, we will be unstoppable.

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