Counting to 8

I made the trip over to Plaster Creek Park in Grand Rapids on Sunday to contest the first Kisscross race of the season. Particularly after my less-than-stellar practice race at the 'cross clinic on Saturday, I wanted to get one more training race in before I head to Baltimore next weekend for Charm City 'Cross.

The course was pretty fast and flowy. There were a few fun "roller coaster" turns where you just let the hill slow you down on the way up, and then you turn and bomb down the other side. There were also a few Kisscross oddities: a big spiral and a set of triple barriers. All said, it was a really fun course.

We had a pretty big "B" field: 46 racers in the B field, and 37 in the B-masters. They announced that we would be doing 8 laps ("count your own laps"... remember this), and then we were off.

I held back just a little at the start; I think going out too hard was part of my problem on Saturday. I ended up near the front, but this let John Osgood (one of the few racers I knew) build a decent gap. From then on, I rode pretty steady and picked riders off the whole way. I ended up riding most of the race with fellow Rhino Dan Gosen. At about the halfway point, we started lapping riders, and then it got really difficult to tell who you were racing.

For this race, I really wanted to focus on taking correct lines and being in the correct gear. The gearing thing is something I'm not always disciplined about. For the most part, it was fine, but there was a long 180 degree corner through a baseball infield that I really struggled with. I think I was making two mistakes: going in too fast, and taking a wider line, where the sand/gravel was a little deeper. Dan, and others, always seemed to erase whatever gap I'd built up in that one corner.

About halfway through (what I thought) was our second-to-last lap, I started looking around to see the gap to Osgood and who was in between us, to plan a bit for that last lap. The gap to John was pretty big, and I wasn't sure if the few guys between us were on the lead lap or not, but I didn't think so.

So, as we're riding through the start / finish line, Dan calls out "We're done". I said, "No, we have one more to go." I was so sure, and I still felt pretty good, so I could have definitely done another lap. I must have been convincing, because Dan and I kept going. (In hindsight, I remember seeing a few tags on the spindle already, but no one was standing there.) We went through a couple corners, then I saw John, sitting up and pedaling easy. Doh! Dan and I scooted back to the spindle (where there was now a line) and put our tags on. We crossed the line 2nd and 3rd, but were scored as 10th and 11th. Sorry Dan. (We did get a mention on the results page... "a few people had trouble counting laps...")

Photo of me...

Anyway, the race was a lot of fun and I have some confidence now heading into Charm City and the Tailwind series.