NC Cross #2
Nice short hour and half drive over to Cary, NC. Cary is the heart of the "research triangle", very upscale nice area, lots of new strip malls with the requisite chain restaurants and shops, parkways with developments off of them. I'm sure it's pure hell at rush hour. On a Sunday morning it wasn't bad at all. The race was in a nice city park.
Good course with a mix of asphalt, grass, soft trail in the woods, and dirt/stone paths. I'm not a big fan of the gravel/stone roads, the sound of stones pinging off of bikes isn't music to any cyclist's ears. The course had some good off-camber downhill turns that were tricky, a long run-up, one set of barriers, another dismount on an uphill off-camber hill that was so muddy it was unrideable (and not easy to get enough traction to run up either). Good temps and sun brought some more riders out, probably around 70 for the masters race. Some mid week rain left the course spongy in parts.
Starts have never been one of my strong suites but this year I've been doing OK. We started on a flat wide grass area, probably 20 riders across, after about 50 meters we hit a short steep uphill that narrowed to only allow 2 riders side by side as you dropped back down off the elevation. I hit the narrow part around 5th, the course went into some wet grass and then into a fast section thru the woods before you came out onto a deceptively hard section. It didn't look hard or seem like it should be hard but it felt hard. Guys were starting to let gaps open already. I had to go around a couple of guys to get back to the tail of the front group but I didn't last there very long. I just wasn't feeling the love. My legs felt OK, but I just lacked the drive to really give it everything. I'm in the middle of 2 week block of hard training before easing off for the rest of the season, so maybe that was it or it could have been 2 or 3 too many glasses of wine at a party we went to Saturday night.
Anyway I mostly fell back from there. Even lost out to a couple of guys I rode with the last two laps which is not typical for me. I usually have good endurance and can out last people who I end up racing around. I haven't seen the results yet, but I'd guess I ended up somewhere around 10th thru 12th. Now I've got to decide if I want to make the 4+ hour drive out to Boone for next week's race. It's suppose to be a real nice area of the state. I might go and do a metric century on Saturday that's on the way there, and then get a hotel for Saturday night close to Boone. If I didn't have Sirius satellite radio, I'm not sure I'd even consider spending over 8 hours in the car by myself for a bike race.
Good course with a mix of asphalt, grass, soft trail in the woods, and dirt/stone paths. I'm not a big fan of the gravel/stone roads, the sound of stones pinging off of bikes isn't music to any cyclist's ears. The course had some good off-camber downhill turns that were tricky, a long run-up, one set of barriers, another dismount on an uphill off-camber hill that was so muddy it was unrideable (and not easy to get enough traction to run up either). Good temps and sun brought some more riders out, probably around 70 for the masters race. Some mid week rain left the course spongy in parts.
Starts have never been one of my strong suites but this year I've been doing OK. We started on a flat wide grass area, probably 20 riders across, after about 50 meters we hit a short steep uphill that narrowed to only allow 2 riders side by side as you dropped back down off the elevation. I hit the narrow part around 5th, the course went into some wet grass and then into a fast section thru the woods before you came out onto a deceptively hard section. It didn't look hard or seem like it should be hard but it felt hard. Guys were starting to let gaps open already. I had to go around a couple of guys to get back to the tail of the front group but I didn't last there very long. I just wasn't feeling the love. My legs felt OK, but I just lacked the drive to really give it everything. I'm in the middle of 2 week block of hard training before easing off for the rest of the season, so maybe that was it or it could have been 2 or 3 too many glasses of wine at a party we went to Saturday night.
Anyway I mostly fell back from there. Even lost out to a couple of guys I rode with the last two laps which is not typical for me. I usually have good endurance and can out last people who I end up racing around. I haven't seen the results yet, but I'd guess I ended up somewhere around 10th thru 12th. Now I've got to decide if I want to make the 4+ hour drive out to Boone for next week's race. It's suppose to be a real nice area of the state. I might go and do a metric century on Saturday that's on the way there, and then get a hotel for Saturday night close to Boone. If I didn't have Sirius satellite radio, I'm not sure I'd even consider spending over 8 hours in the car by myself for a bike race.
posted by Venga, Venga, Venga! at 5:38 AM
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