Date:
15 January 2006
Location: Watsonville
Category: B
Distance/Time: 45 min
Field: 10
Conditions: Clear, with soft mud and little hard mud and some deep mud
Place: 4
I spent Saturday riding at my In-Laws in Paso Robles where it dumped
rain for the duration of my 2 hour ride. The rain was so bad I could
hardly see and my hands were so numb I couldn't even brake if I had
to. Luckily most people were not as "crazy" as me and stayed inside
so I had the roads to myself. So with that I was ready to race on Sunday.
Woke up and did the 2.5 hour drive to Watsonville. The toughest part
of the drive was waking my wife up at 6am on a Sunday. Woohoo not a
pleasant way to start the morning for her. She is not a morning
person to begin with. The fog was horrendous as we left and I was
only driving 45mph. She decided to sleep but 1st asking me if I was
going to fall asleep if she did. That was nice....
We arrived to see Andrew jr. finish his warm up lap and to get the
scoop from Andrew sr. what the course looked like. He said it was a
mud course and showed me his bike as it was caked with that sticky
yucky mud that acts like quick sand if you step in it.
As Andrew jr. raced I got ready to race and did a little warm up on
the trainer and when the juniors and the C's finished I headed out for
a quick lap to see the mud. It was going to be tough but I kept
saying to myself it's only 40 min. I rolled to the start already
caked with mud and did a look down the line of us. We were all in 1
line since there was only 10 of us. I say a few familiar faces and
with that we got the whistle to go. From the start I had trouble
clipping in. We started right into the mud field and then proceeded
into the mud bog with a steep run up that was muddy as well. My bike
felt like it weight a 100lbs each lap after I went through the mud bog
and it made it very tough to get going after that plus my feet were 1
big mud balls and my pedal didn't look any better. I had enough mud
stuffed into my brakes to make any kid scream with joy. The thing I
noticed is that no matter how much mud I accumulated around the brakes
my Paul canti's worked perfect. At 1 point I couldn't even spin the
front tire but the brakes worked perfect.
The race felt like forever as the course just got worse and the mud
got bigger. I was even picking lines to ride through the bigger
puddles just for fun. I was happy with my bike handling skills and
only a couple places I picked the wrong lines and had to put a foot
down to catch myself. Coming into the last couple laps I was sitting
in 4th and I wasn't gaining any ground on the top 3 so I rode
conservatively and hoped maybe 1 of them would make a mistake but no
such luck. With the sound of the last lap bell all I could think was
only 1 more time through the mud bog and 1 more time up the hill. I
looked back and saw not a sole in sight so I finished strong and
pleased with my placing.
I think to hose down my bike took longer than the race did. The mud
was yucky but a great race.
Next CX race: Sunday 22, 2006 Watsonville
Travis Tonn
San Jose Bicycle Club
Racing since 1939
