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Post by Josh Whitmore on Dec 16, 2007 22:18:59 GMT -5
Course conditions from bad to worse!
I was pretty demoralized after my masters race yesterday, so I wasn't very excited to post an update. The predicted snow and low temps came in as expected. 3 inches new snow and temps in the low 20's for my 11am race. The course was frozen solid. All the mud ruts from the previous day were fozen in time, like fossils of a time long ago. The problem was that the ruts never go where you want them to.
I lined up 110th and finshed 42nd, although I was hoping to break the top 15, maybe 10. I went pretty slow, tentative of the course and crashed about every minute and a half. The temps were hard for me to deal with. Hands and feet like ice blocks 5 mins into the race. Yuck.
Sunday: Warmed up a little today, right around freezing, so the course thawed out a bit. Had some muddy sections, some icey sections.
Pro race: lined up 144th and finished 59th. I had a much better race today, and was flying on the first lap and passed about 60 people. I continued to move up the entire race and was around 45th place, then on the last lap, I took two hard falls, one where I spent a good deal of time un-tangling myself from the course tape. A bunch of people passed me then.
I am really happy with this race, as I fared much better than the previous day and did ok against the countries best pros and elite cross racers.
Only a couple more cross races to go - in England as we visit family over christmas.
Josh
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Post by TC on Dec 16, 2007 22:33:37 GMT -5
WOW!! I have been checking out some of the racing footage on Youtube. I can't believe you guys are even racing in that crap. There is no way I could be tempted to go race with the temps below freezing. They should have let everyone stand on the podium for that!
Way to go Whitmores, It is really cool that you guys are so tough. Did everyone crash every minute and a half? Some of the footage showed people running their bike for a long, long, time!
Hope the rest of your travels are safe, and Merry Holidays, TC
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Post by nchillbilly on Dec 17, 2007 8:49:20 GMT -5
Congrats to you and Deb you guys are troopers, I hate cold and to add all the other crap in with it you must love to ride er race the bike, I'll stick around here in the sunny SE for my races, would have made for some interesting on bike footage though....
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Post by mvi on Dec 17, 2007 18:35:11 GMT -5
Did you see the picture of Jonathan Page on VeloNews? Racing without gloves in the snow! Hate it that he lost. He has a pretty hard time in Belgium right now. The only American pro who is 100% committed to race cross with the world elite. He came out to fight it seems , reading the reports about elbows thrown, and handlebars banging. He didn't line up to race for second, whatever needed to be done. I like that attitude, however the other US riders hate him for that it seems. Hope that he will get his late season shape back like last year.
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Post by YellowLemondTed on Dec 17, 2007 19:04:28 GMT -5
TC, could you post some links to the vids on youtube? I could only find one and yes durn it looks like the race was hell frozen over haha. Good luck to Deb and Josh in the UK races, the tems and conditions over there probably won't be a whole lot better.
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Post by TC on Dec 17, 2007 23:38:59 GMT -5
Type into the search engine at the top: 2007 cyclocross nationals
Also vids on velonews.com
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Post by YellowLemondTed on Dec 18, 2007 11:23:22 GMT -5
Grazi TC
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Post by Vespa on Dec 18, 2007 15:38:39 GMT -5
Way to go Josh and Deb!
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