Cap City Uncle Steve's, OVCX Gun Club Cross

Photo Frans Tan via Facebook
Another weekend of excellent cross racing. This season has been pretty much a total opposite of last season. Out of the 12 races I have done, 7 have been muddy. This is in sharp contrast to 1 muddy race last year. Heavy rains Saturday morning made the courses nice and muddy.

Saturday was the Cap City race at Uncle Steve's in Marysville. Last year, this race was hot, dry and super bumpy. Many people left with bloody, blistered hands and many people this year brought their mountain bikes to try to tame the untameable property of Uncle Steve's. Well the heavy rains did soften up the ground a little bit but still bumpy in some sections.

During my pre-ride, I swapped between my Fangos and my new Vittoria XM. Half the course was fairly dry and the other half wet and muddy. The Fangos did not give me much forward grip in the rear and was spinning out. So I gave the new XMs a try. They hooked up nicely but I noticed on drier sections the tires rolled slow. So for a good compromise, I ran the Fango up front and XM rear.

I had a great start and was in the front group with Matt Weeks, Garth Prosser, Dan Campbell, and Phil Noble. About the second lap I had come off the the group, Matt took off and Garth, dan and Phil battled it out. Ryan Gamm had made his return to racing and I was towing him around for a while. Later on, Gamm attacked me and never looked back. He eventually caught up to Phil and passed him. At around 45 minutes, I was in no man's land with Phil pretty far up the course (but still in view) and no one behind me. So I decided to slow it down a little to try to save up for Sunday. However, this unknown guy had started to creep up on me. So no biggie, I slowed down a little bit too much so I turned it up a notch. With two to go, he really started charging. I had to really turn it back on to hold him off. So much for saving for the next day. He never caught me and I rolled in for 6th, my season best.

I opted to not return to Athens to simply avoid the mess of Halloween and went over to Isaiah's place. I quickly took a shower and we headed over to Qdoba with his girlfriend for dinner. There was a Krispy Kreme next door and upon leaving, the HOT NOW light had turned on. I said we must go there and we did. I had never eaten a hot out of the fryer donut and I have to say it is simply the best donut. It just melts in your mouth. We returned to his place, watched the World Series and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning sore to the core. Pretty much every muscle in my body hurt. Luckily I didn't race until 3:3o so I had plenty of time to get loose, warm up, etc. I left Columbus just before noon and arrived at the race around 1:30. I quicky pre-rode part of the course right before the Elite Masters went off and found that the course was pretty bad. There were two unrideable muddy hills, one forced dismount and run muddy hill and another hill where you could make it up about half the time. This was a real power course. I opted to ride both XMs today since there was a lot of mud. However I probably could have done what I did on Saturday since the course did dry up a little bit as the race progressed.

I had a second row start and had a pretty good start. I was probably in the top 10 for the first lap. But soon after I just blew up and shot out the back. I settled down a bit and motored on. I felt like quitting several times but kept at it. About half way, I creeped up to the next guy on course. I was able to pass and gap him when the course turned muddy. I looked back later on and he was pretty distant. Then half a lap, one lap later, out of the blue he sprinted past me. But no worries, we were going into the muddy section and I just past him back. Soon after he pulled the pin and withdrew. Unfortunately, he withdrew from the past spot in the money.

I kept going at a good tempo. The course was super hard so you really couldn't ride it easy. Soon I saw Chris and used him as my target and motivation. I would gain a little and then lose a little. Two laps to go, I was getting dangerously close to getting lapped. Not wanting this to happen, I picked it up a little. Luckily I was able to cross the finish about 30 seconds in front of the winner and got to do my bonus lap. I wasn't going to catch Chris so I just rode the course pretty easy to finish it up.

DFL 14th place and in the Money! Made $20. I really felt flat and thought i had a pretty bad day. But however looking at the data, I rode harder than I did on Saturday. How is it that I felt like a rock star on sat and put out less power than when I felt horrible today? Next week is only one race so I guess I will find out if I can really ride harder at an OVCX race fresh. Or maybe it's mental?

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