Bourbon and Horses Day 2

After ascending out of our sleep cave for coffee and breakfast, we piled our stuff into the van and were off to the course for our last day of racing.  We would not be back to the house as myself and Russell would be shuttled straight to the airport after the Elite race.

We made it to the venue in time to sneak in a lap of the newly revised course before the next race went off.  After riding, I was back at the truck to set up the "B" bike on the trainer so I could be all set for my warm up.  I spent about 10 minutes looking around before asking if anyone had seen my other bike.  It was brought back from the pit after yesterdays race and stored in the truck over night.  I checked with the guys in the pit, called a teammate that rode back to the hotel and spoke with the race director and none of them turned up a thing.  My bike was gone, crap, now I was a bit stressed as I warmed up for my race.  Matt was already on the phone lining up a replacement to be shipped out that week and had also set up his bike as my pit bike.  With about 30 minutes til race time, my teammate, Isaac, walks up with my bike and a great story. He was walking the course and sees a guy standing with my bike and quickly takes it from the guy.  The guy looks and says "hey, what are you doing?"  Isaac says "I am taking my teammates bike back, they having been announcing this bike missing for the last 2 hours and you are standing right next to the speakers!"  He says "I just borrowed that this morning!".  Well, it turns out that he had checked out a demo bike from the truck and took the wrong bike. I would have thought the name on the top tube and the $300 Dugast tubulars would have tipped him off that it was not a demo but I guess not.

After the stress of all that business, I had to hit the line for race #2.  I had a pretty good start but not as good as the day before and found myself just off the lead group.  It was really windy and I could never close the gap.  I would get within 5 sec. and then would lose it in the sand as people were running in the only rideable line so I was forced to run.  I ended up 10th but felt like it could have been another top 5 day.  Oh well.

I skipped the elite race and worked the pit and then helped with cleanup so we could get to the airport on time.  We were out fairly quickly and I was on a plane back home from another great weekend with the Trek CXC crew.  I will be back to Louisville for the Master's and Elite World Championships and hopefully my bikes will not go missing.

Thanks to Trek CXC for the great race support this season and to my wife for her encouragement and support to do it.

The land of bourbon and horses-day 1

Last weekend was the third stop of the USGP Cyclocross Series in Loooville, KY, I guess that is how to correctly pronounce it.  I flew out on Friday after work and was picked up and taken to our host house by 8 p.m.

Wonderful hosts and accommodations for the weekend

We had the basement and it was like a sleep cave and was probably more square footage than our whole house.    There were many pictures, art work, etc. that reminded us that we were in Kentucky Derby country.  It was a fantastic place to stay for the weekend.

Since I was the only one that flew in, I was not there to ride the course on Friday so when we made it to the course around 10 I headed out for a couple laps between races.  This was/is going to be the course for the 2013 Elite Cyclocross World Championships in February.  It had steps, a long sand section and high speeds, a great European style course, although it was short.  My 35+ masters race was at 1:00 and my legs were feeling pretty good.  I was called up #10 so 2nd row and I lined up behind Pete Webber, current Master's World Champ, a good wheel to follow.  I had a great start and found myself in the lead group.  I was nailing the long sand section and that is where I was putting time into people.  With 3 to go I caught the series leader, Mark Savery, who is also my teammate, and passed him for the final podium spot and never looked back.  I came across the line in 3rd for my best result so far at a USGP.  3 Minnesotans in the top 10.  Cj Faulkner-5th, Josh Roeser 8th, Chris Fisher-21st, which also put 4 of us in the top 10 for the series.

pretty sure they forgot to give us champaign

It was a great feeling to be on the podium in the Trek CXC colors.  It also meant that the pressure was on for the next day.

We hit up a great place for dinner and a beer and then it was back for some recovery time before heading to the sleep cave.