My first CX race ever was at Spanish Lake in 2007. I had spent the mountain bike season focusing on 12 hour racing and had a massive base but not much top end. Some of the A's that arrived that day were Harre, Nagy, Loudermilk and John Matthews. I ended up 2cd behind Harre, naturally, and had a great battle with Matthews which came down to a sprint.
I had tons of doubt about yesterday after a hard week of workouts and wasn't feeling too hot but was pretty motivated and started listening to some Kings of Leon and reminiscing about a day like this in 2008 and was seriously missing all my Mesa buddies that made that period in time so special. Not to mention that I had just met my soon to be wife and we went to McGurks most Sunday nights after the races, which was a beautiful thing. I get goosebumps just thinking about that CX season and being head over heels in love with my now wife. Fucking best ever.
This year doesn't feel much different; I've got that same newness and motivation with CX racing after a long hiatus, everything else in my life is firing on all cylinders and while I do miss the Mesa team, I'm enjoying meeting a bunch of new folks and rekindling friendships that fell off when I stopped racing in 2010.
The usual suspects lined up with a new face, J Doug, who I recognized from the Championship race last year and podiumed. I got a good jump and made it through the first turn first until the first 90 degree left hander and was passed by J Doug and Anthony who took off. Immediately this race went from the more civilized starts to all out attacks on the first lap. We all had taken our turns at the front and I jumped back on for the gravel descent. Once we hit the hill Anthony dropped the hammer and only I was able to respond. We had a gap which continued to grow as the race went on. Anthony gapped me on the hill on the 3rd lap and was able to maintain a 20-30 second lead for the rest of the race. At one point on the last lap I had closed it down to about half that, apparently he took a swim after the start finish, but we finished with the same gap and about 2 minutes or so to J Doug and Jon Bell.
All in all I rode a pretty clean race and had good power, which I'm pleased with. I was able to power through the race without bogging down to much and had enough power to attack the hill on the last few laps. Good race. Looking forward to resting up a bit and seeing what I can bring to the Little Big Show next weekend.
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