It's been a few years since I've done a cross race, so I figured I'd give the Hudson CX race a shot since Margot recently taught me some new dismounting skills. I thought the Hudson course was tough and I struggled, especially with the sand. I even had a half-ass crash on some easy part of the course, but I don't even remember what happened. I'm super bruised and sore today. I liked the part of the course that ran along/on the St. Croix river even though I didn't really have time to enjoy the scenery. After the race, everyone asked me if I had fun, and I wanted to answer "yes" (because those CX racers all love CX so much), but I just couldn't lie. I'm sure if I were better at CX I'd like it more, but for now, I just don't get excited about getting off of my bike during a race. In fact, I found myself thinking "I wish this were a crit" on multiple occasions. Props to my teammate AmyC who won the women's C division. I think I ended up 8th out of 10, but I'm not sure. Here's some video of my sub-par cross skills:I shouldered my bike through the sand pit on the first lap, but I was too lazy/tired to do it on my second lap (see video) - then everybody was yelling "shoulder it", so I didn't make that mistake again:
p.s. Check out Lieselot's results from Worlds!!
3 comments:
You're so funny! You look very smooth, actually. I don't know, I find it's so much easier to just shoulder the bike than to push it, with really few exceptions.
Too bad you didn't do Orono! There are so few women C's, and you're the only Blogger I know who's done a CX race this year. I was dying to know how the C race went today (yeah, I kind of ranted about it a bit, but I'm still super curious).
It's a shame you don't like it more, but you're right-you've got to really like getting off the bike for it to be fun.
Ok, but wasn't running over stuff kind of fun??? :-D
Shouldering it is actually easier once you get the hang of it. One second of effort saves the energy of dragging the bike through sand during the run. That was the most technical race of the year so far - you should try another race like Powderhorn!
Like the videos you look like you're flying through the sand not shouldering it. Powderhorn is insane. High speed dismount at the bottom of a hill. Look 4 u at the next one :)
Post a Comment