UTCX #'s 3&4

Couple of quick race recaps to get caught up.

UTCX #3 Utah State Fairgrounds - "roadie" course: Annie bumped up to the B's at this race and held her own just fine. She finished 7th with a good, solid ride, made some improvement to some technique type things, and she's gaining more confidence - the latter being the most important to her continuing to get faster at this point.

My race went fine, rode clean with no major mistakes, top end capacity is improving little by little, and most importantly, having a lot of fun. The new treat at this new course - wood chips. They made for a tricky surface but became more managable as the race progressed, traction became fairly reliable through the woodchip corners after the group cut some lines into/through them on the first lap. Lot's of speed changes with all the corner's - certainly different than any of the other tracks in the series. Didn't blow any air out of tires during remounts, so that's an improvement. Post race meal is probably not an improvement, but mmm, mmm - not serious enough to deprive myself of this kind of stuff yet. Maybe someday, maybe not.


UTCX #4 Weber Fairgrounds - Annie and I split up in the a.m. - she had to teach a Pilates class that morning so I took a car up alone for my 9:30 (C's) race. Was stoked to pack the wet race gear Saturday morning, forcast looked promising for some slop, and looked good most of the drive up to Ogden. But by the time I pulled in, there was a rainbow with a mixed cloudy/blue sky. If it can't be slop, it was the next best thing - same conditions as two weeks previous at the same track - tacky, nice cool weather, just a helluva morning to race bikes.

I botched the start, big time - managed to get myself into what must have been the back 10 spots in a fairly good sized field, which made for an ugly sight when I looked up to see the field strung way out in front of me. Put my head back down and tried to ride hard with a few big digs (I don't have more than a few) the rest of the race, and minus the first 60 seconds, made my best ride thus far this year.


Then there's Annie... After teaching her class that morning, she loads the kids and makes the drive up. Jumps out for a quick warm up, and proceeds to race onto the podium in her 2nd race with the B's. Chicks that ride/race bikes are hot.

She made some significant improvements on a few of those technique/skill things that had her going dramatically faster through portions of her race that had been problematic previously.

Shannon and Kara are a few of several good racers in the B field, and will make good carrot's for Annie to chase the rest of the season. Can't tell you how fun it is to have Annie digging the CX racing, and how fun it is to watch her do so well.

We set up the canopy out by the single log barrier and the kids had a good time ringin their cowbells and building rock piles.

The sky finally dumped a bunch of water right before and during the start of the Men's B/SS race - making for the first true CX conditions of the year. Hard to tell without something else in the photo for perspective, but the above ski tracks were made just prior to the double log barrier, rider had both heels dug into the ground trying to slow/get traction - those skids are about 8 ft long. Only thing better than the slickness was that the guy kept his balance and hopped the logs without incident, although his eyes were big for a few seconds. Completely different ballgame in these conditions than we'd had just hours earlier, with the outcomes being dictated by entirely different skillsets and approaches to course management.