Quad Cross - Women's Race Reports
Quad’ Cross
Bedford, MA
9/13/2009
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Conditions:
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Sunny, mid 70’s.
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The Course:
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This race was at Middlesex Community College. The course was grassy with a single barrier and a bit after, a set of double barriers. There were tight switch backs and a small dirt run up.
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Results:
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Victoria Gates – Juniors 10-14 – 2nd
Kathy Martin – Women 3/4 – 18th
Jean Cunningham – Women 3/4 – 20th
Kristen Luckach – Women 3/4 – 23rd
Julie Lockhart – Women 3/4 – 25th
Karin Turer – Women 3/4 – 26th
Clara Kelly – Women P/1/2/3 – 8th
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Reports:
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[Victoria Gates]
My goals were to finish the race, keep the shinny side up, and to podium. My start was great and I was up front very quick. I went over the barriers in first place. The second place girl was close behind. I finished the lap and on the second time on the barriers I dropped my chain! The second place rider passed me and became the first place rider. I managed to get my chain on and keep going. I suffered on the finishing strait. I crossed the line in second place. Lessons learned: always stay calm when you drop a chain.
[Kathy Martin]
As my first cross of the season, my only goal was “to have fun” (considering that I had been off the bike most of the previous week, and I was out quite late the night before at a bachelorette party).
On lap 1, I decided to run the spongy uphill woods section after the first barriers even though I had been able to ride it in my warmup. Being in a group, running seemed safer and less of a gamble. It was a good idea since I did not give up any places there. Yay!
In the men’s Cat 4 race, I watched practically the entire field wipe out in the turn leading to the final barrier, so I knew to watch out. I remembered Todd R’s clinic instructions to “dismount and coast as long as you can”, so I glided down the slope and stepped off in the apex of the turn, actually passing the rider in front of me with that technique. Alas, I had to wipe the self-satisfied smile off my face when I crashed in the mud of the next hairpin. Argh! The girl I had passed passed me back, along with at least one other.
On the second lap I was more or less on my own and I just concentrated on being smooth and steady, tried to take deep breaths on the downhills to get my heart rate under control, and rode the spongy woods section (still faster for me than running). On the third lap I passed the girl in front of me (in the barriers!) and on the fourth lap I passed another girl (the one with whom I had dosie-doed in the first lap) right before the finish. I even managed to get out of the saddle and sprint to the line to make sure she didn’t come around me.
That was a nice improvement over my first two years of cross racing, because it was the first time that I’ve had enough energy left at the end of the race to pass anyone. In previous years, I’ve been the one being passed in the last lap or two. I am happy with the my result and looking forward to the next race!
[Jean Cunningham]
I arrived at the venue late enough to miss warming up on the course…the Men4 already were lined up and preparing for the start. That may have been just as well, as it seems everything really dried out in the intervening hour and sections that might have been sketchy weren’t so bad later in the day. I registered, pinned up my jersey, and hopped out on my bike to watch the first few laps underway and get a sense of the course from the sidelines. I’m not a big fan of scary stuff (e.g., nasty off camber sections or steep rocky descents), and this race suited me fine. Long grass sections, lots of twists and turns, but nothing too horrendous. After sympathizing with Jason about his missing derailleur, I went out on the roads for a spin.
It was great to see so many women at the start of the 3/4 race, including good representation from NEBC. The first lap, as always, was a bit of a blur for me. I started toward the back and planned to use the first go round to get a feel for the course. It was hard…I’d forgotten how tiring riding on the grass can be. There were a few sections where I was pleased to find that choosing a different line worked to my advantage – grass rather than gravel, or off the beaten path to try passing a rider.
Overall the race went pretty much as I thought it would… it was good to be finished, as I’d been very nervous at the start. Nothing like the first race of the season to get the butterflies worked out of the stomach (I hope)! Now I just need to work on remounting, fitness, and handling, and I’ll be all set.
[Kristen Lukach]
Happiness is arriving at the first cx race of the season and seeing miles of stakes and tape for the first time in 9 months. It’s like being a little kid on Christmas morning and seeing a tree full of smartly wrapped gifts. I wish you could bottle that feeling and save it for February when it’s grey and slushy and gross and you’re sitting on your trainer hating life. Momentary euphoria was replaced by utter panic though, and I literally ran to registration and ran back to the car to get ready. That, and half of a lap on the course was the entirety of my warm-up. Not ideal. I was just about the last person to reach the staging area and so was relegated to the very back of the pack with the juniors. Also, not ideal. Then we sat in the sun and waited. And waited and waited and waited some more. It was pretty hot and I was starting to regret chucking my water bottle under a nearby bush so I unclipped and went to reach for it and hear “3,2,1…” DOH! Scramble to get back clipped in and am already chasing 27 people who had the common sense not to unclip at that particular moment. Congratulations NEBC, the village idiot is one of your own.
Being that I wasn’t anywhere near the pack in the first 15 yards, I decided to take the path of least resistance around the speed bumps and picked up some spots on people who tried to sprint through them and failed. When we reached the grass I was sitting in about 17th place which I held onto for about 6 seconds, getting passed on the first climb which hurt way more than it should have. Didn’t I just race mountain bikes for 5 months straight? Something is wrong here… Instant, horrifying realization struck that mtb fitness and ‘cross fitness are not the same thing and that the next 29 minutes are going to be full of pain and unpleasantness.
The course was the same as last year, except not as muddy and they moved the first set of barriers farther back to try and force a run-up in the section that weaves through the pine trees. I’m sure the section after the barriers was actually ridable but it seemed like it took less energy to run…unless of course that you haven’t been doing much in the way of running with a heavy POSCB on your tender, beginning of the season shoulder in which case running isn’t just energy-zapping, it actually really hurts. I really wanted to stick on Kathy Martin’s wheel because she beat me by 2 or 3 places every race last year but I kept loosing ground and by the end of lap 2 she was gone for good. Jean dropped the hammer on the uphill by the finish line at the start of lap 3 and I didn’t have enough left to match it and watched her ride away as well.
I was pretty much alone on the course until the last lap when the woman behind me started gaining ground. I had nothing left and more or less had to walk the run-up and by the time I remounted (gracefully and with skill may I add…pretty proud of that) she was right on my wheel. I held onto the lead through the switchbacks, across the parking lot and around the muddy corner but once we hit the gravel before re-entering the pavement she had pulled though. I passed her back on the pavement and was first up the hill but she pulled up alongside me after the first turn, dropped me on the next hill and rode out of sight around the bend. I thought, “well, that sucked, game over” but there was one last climb up to the finish line and upon rounding the corner I was surprised that she was only about 10 yards ahead. OK FINE, I’M GOING FOR IT.
I tried to stand up and sprint and spun out. By the time I clicked up a few gears there were only about 8 yards between her and the finish line. I gave it everything I had, plus some. By this time the officials and everyone hanging out at the finish line had caught on and were yelling for her not to get caught and for me to catch her. It was slow-motion chaos. It was awesome. I threw at the line but in the end she had me by 1/8 of a wheel.
Yeah, all this for 23rd place…whatever. It was glorious. I love cyclocross.
[Julie Lockhart]
What a fun race/ and a beautiful day – still the mud at the single barrier after the parking lot, but two sets of fun chicanes to remove some of of the grass crit effect. Easing into the season, I set goals that took into account the fact that I spent the better part of August and early September off the bike, in a car, traveling across the country on US highways going from Sr Games to Track Nationals and visiting friends and family. My start could have been better, so I did some do -si-do-ing with several different riders then settled in to catch a rider and target Karin … passed her, only to have her pass me back … in the end I re passed her and another rider (practicing my spinning) ... very satisfying solid first race.
[Karin Turer]
We just had a very active mtn-biking vacation, so I thought I was in pretty good shape. But nothing prepares you for 30 minutes of cyclocross hell like actually being there and doing it. The course in Bedford is deceptive too – it has no major landscape features, but it is lots of slow bumpy energy-sucking grass! Had a nice 10 mile ride to the race (yay for races in riding distance!), where I remembered my cross bike is quite uncomfortable! In the race I got a lousy start whereas I’m usually pretty good at that, then it basically went downhill from there. A few fun back-and-forths with other racers, as I’m definitely better at the run-ups/barriers than I am at the power stuff. I couldn’t get into my big ring which killed me on the pavement. The crowning moment was dropping my chain after the barriers – I was breathing so hard that I was having trouble getting it back on. To add insult to injury, that extra fiddling time was the difference between getting lapped and not, as I got nipped just before the final straightaway. But hey, the first race is out of the way, now it gets fun. And I totally won the all-important sock competition.