Headed down to Parkville MO, 5 min from where I grew up and raced Boss Cross 5 down at English Landing Park.
What is neat (to me) about this particular race is not only was I a home grown KC north-ender but my first cross race ever was here. 3 years ago the Hippy and I came down and tried out the cross thing. Took our SS MTB down with us and gave it a shot. Both came in DFL and one from DFL but it was the bug that bit us bad! I like to think that running a 32x18 had something to do with the DFL's but that's another story.
Off to racing.... English Landing is pretty flat, which does not suit me at all, but I have been feeling pretty good last couple of races.
Even better, I had the fam down with me! Well most of it anyway..
Yes, I am a lucky man..
Lined up front row (Cat 3) and herd Joe Fox announce that first lap gets a 12 of Boulevard. Hummm, I might just have to push it a little more than I would, see what happens.
Were off and I hit the hole shot about 5 deep. Anyone who had any legs took off about the time we hit the paved trail and thinned out the field quit a bit. There was a technical section by the river that had a sand "run" up which was pretty easy to ride if there wasn't any traffic.
First lap, there was traffic, and we all got stalled out at the top. Got back on the rig and crossed the first lap in 3rd, just missed out on my free Boulevard.
Most of the race consisted of 1&2 dropping me on the flat paved section and me catching back up on the sand/180 turns and the "run" up.
The "run" up
Fast forward to the last couple of laps and I devised a game plan. The plan was have 1&2 play with each other and tire out. I will draft off of them on the pave section and then haul arse to the finish in first.
Well....... Second to last lap we hit the run up, which I have been riding and getting all kinds of time on them and we got into lapped traffic.
We hit the run up and someone was running the uphill on the line and there was no way for me to ride it. This pretty much ended my hopes for the W. The boys had hit it hard on the last lap and there was no way for me to close a gap that big in one lap. Bummer....
Cool thing is we completely left the field behind us, which made me feel a bit of accomplishment. Not as much as a win would have done though!
On another note.. Granted I am not a Cat 1 bad arse, but if you can't ride sections of the course, please don't run on the only line available. Get to the side and run it. Thank you!
Raced on Saturday at the Colavita Cup down at Stump Park and
Wow! I have to hand it to the Colavita guys, they can make one hell of a cross
course!! Every one they put on turns into my favorite courses to race..
I just love courses that are not pancake flat, get some good
elevation change and throw in some off camber 180’s and we have a cross course
fellas.
The Cat 3 field was as deep as I have seen it, 39 lined up
behind the Open 1, 2’s. We were going the same 50min and starting 20 seconds
behind them.
Lined up with the usual suspects and had Travis to contend
with for the first time. My plan was to
just hop onto John Williams wheel and see what happens. For the second time this year at the start I
had trouble clipping in, but still hammered the best I could so that I did not get
to far behind. About the time I get up and going, JW broke his chain so a new
game plan had to be devised.
Got up and going about 6-8 back and on the first lap noticed
that guys were having trouble on the off camber stuff and I noticed I was
climbing pretty good also. After the first lap and things had calmed down a bit
I kept a pretty strong pace (for me anyway). Game plan was to go pretty hard on
the climbs and then just hold my spot through the technical areas.
Here is Doan's cam of the first lap. He had be beat til we hit the barriers when I pass him, think he held on for the rest of the rest of race a couple guys back. Good race for him..
After several laps in I started dropping the field, yet the top
3 were hauling arse and you could tell. I kept passing 4th place at
the same spot on a switchback each lap so I knew he was in range but I wasn’t
making any headway.
Last couple laps in and I had caught and passed a couple
open 1/2’s which I thought was too cool. Only other times I raced behind them,
I had a nice DNF with a crash and a mechanical.
About the time I got to start feeling good about myself was
about the same time I got lapped by Joe Schmalz. Holy hell batman, that will humble
you in a hurry. I did however make a pivital decision at this point, im gonna hold his effing wheel up this hill if it kills me... Which I did, then I blew up, it was great..Anyway, not to much longer after that came Elwell and then Coe.
Coming down to the last couple laps I pull an Andy Schleck
and downshifted like a moron and dropped my chain. I was sitting 5th
chasing 4th and got passed while putting my chain back on. While I
thought we had one more lap I thought to myself not to panic, just get going
and put in a good dig up the hill and pass him back there if I can.
Once we get towards the end of the lap, over the ditch named
Mrs. Stiches I see the guy looking back. Immediately I knew that only meant one
thing… S*^T!!!! This was the last lap... I wondered if being lapped by some of the open guys would
affect the number of laps we had left, and now I knew… Owe well.. I had a good
race, and it was a blast!!
Here is a great example of what I am talking about when some
of these folks have a really hard time riding off camber sections.
That guy got drilled, hope he is alright..
On another quick note, Jake (Rider for Colavita) was hit by a SUV sometime last week or so. Send him some good mojo so he can get back on his ride and start kicking are are butts again..
Jonathan Vaughters climbs one of England’s notoriously steep hills.
Since I moved to the States, American friends have often asked me what I miss most about “England’s green and pleasant land.” I tell them I miss the expected things: meeting old friends for a chat at the village pub, hiking with my brother in the Surrey hills, or watching a good game of English football. But what I really miss—and only a British club cyclist would fully understand—is hill-climb season.
English hill climbs aren’t long, but they’re very, very steep! These short, intense time trials organized by cycling clubs all over the country are among the most popular events in British cycling. Maybe we should import the idea to America….
Hill-climb season happens right now, peaking around Halloween, when there’s a nip in the air, a thick mist hanging over waterlogged fields, and slick, wet leaves covering the back roads where the races take place. These hill climbs are usually two- or three-minute efforts up near-vertical, ancient roads that over the centuries have cut a trench into chalk or sandstone ridges. And the climbs have evocative names such as Horseblock Hollow, Pea Royd Lane, or The Rake.
This past Sunday, a 22-year-old club cyclist from Lancashire named Jack Pullar won the British national hill climb championship on that very hill: The Rake. It starts outside the library in the village of Ramsbottom, passes the Rose & Crown pub a short way up the climb’s easier opening half, and finishes just before another pub, the Shoulder of Mutton. Thousands of fans, most of whom arrived by bike, lined the 874-meter-long climb that averages 11 percent, and has long stretches of between 20 and 25 percent.
Competitors on Sunday had to cope with head winds and a fine drizzle, making it tough to avoid wheel spin on the steepest parts, so Pullar didn’t get closer than five seconds to the course record of 2:16.9. That time was set, remarkably, 19 years ago by Jeff Wright, who used a fixed gear of 42×19 on a good day! Fixed-gear bikes are preferred on these short, sharp ascents because of the more-direct transfer of power to the single rear cog.
Such is the intensity of “sprinting” up these rugged climbs that some riders end up zigzagging across the road or even having to stop and run. Most are in agony when they finish. After his championship-winning effort, Pullar told Cycling Weekly: “My body shut down when I finished, and even when my friends told me I’d won, I said I couldn’t have cared less.”
There are few efforts in cycling that are as demanding as a British hill climb. You quickly go into the red zone, just as you would in a kilometer time trial or individual pursuit on the track. But there’s no elevation gain riding around a velodrome! I can still remember a hill climb I did up that aforementioned Horseblock Hollow, which averages 11.4 percent for a kilometer with some of those nasty 20-percent pitches that characterize English climbs. The anaerobic effort was so excruciating that, on stopping, I lurched to the side of the road like a drunkard and threw up.
It’s because every rider has to race at his or her maximum intensity that hill climbs are so popular with spectators. The starting order in English time trials is different from those in Europe, where the fastest riders nearly always start at the end of the field. In the UK, in a field of 120 riders, the best riders are seeded from the back, but at 10-minute intervals, with bib numbers 10, 20…through to 100, 110 and 120. That keeps the crowd’s interest high throughout the event, usually with a resounding climax at the end.
Virtually all of the UK’s hill climbs take place in September and October, with the top national contenders probably riding a dozen separate races, sometimes twice on the same weekend. One of the most popular, and easily the oldest, is the Catford Classic Hill Climb, which was first held in 1886 and has been staged for the past 127 years, except for breaks during the two world wars. It’s held on a course an hour south of London. Yorks Hill, which starts at a dead-end farm lane, climbs for 646 meters (707 yards) at a 12.5-percent average gradient, with two pitches of 25 percent. Amazingly, despite advances in bike technology and training, the course record of 1:47.6 by South London rider Phil Mason has stood for 29 years!
Just a handful of Britain’s hill climbs are longer than 10 minutes, with the short, sharp ones giving fans the most excitement. And just as cyclo-cross has successfully crossed the Atlantic, perhaps UK-style hill climbs could be the next big thing for bike racing in North America, especially if they are compressed into a similar, short season in the fall.
Most of the current U.S. hill climbs, up mountain peaks such as Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Mount Evans in Colorado, and Mount Tamalpais in California, are held in the summer and are mass-start road races, not time trials. The few uphill TTs include those at Pinnacle Hill, near Albany, New York; Lookout Mountain, near Denver; and San Bruno Mountain, near San Francisco. These are all 15-minute climbs, which is at the top end of the classic UK hill-climb format.
The nearest we’ve come to a British-style event was the one raced up the Manayunk Wall in Philadelphia, which was an amateur time trial held on the Friday night prior to the Philadelphia International Championship. In 2000, that race was also contested by a number of pros, with the victory going to former U.S. pro champ Eddy Gragus, who recorded a 1:50.18 for the one-kilometer course—which had a flat opening section before reaching the 400-meter Wall and its maximum grade of 17 percent.
Many American cities have steep streets that could host hill climbs—including places such as Pittsburgh, Richmond, San Francisco or Seattle—while most experienced riders know about steep hills in their local areas. Imagine a race up Sycamore Street in Pittsburgh, which was a highlight of the Thrift Drug Classic in the 1990s; or up San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, which has seen prologues for the Coors Classic in the 1980s and the more-recent Tour of California.
Short, snappy hill climbs in the autumn are made for riders who race criteriums all summer. In fact, in the month before he started an unbeaten run in this year’s hill-climb season, new British climbing champ Pullar was doing a crit series—and now he’s talking of following in the footsteps of his countrymen Chris Froome, John Tiernan-Locke and Brad Wiggins, and heading to the Continent.
Curiously, British television has yet to embrace hill climbs, but their sudden-death format and enthusiastic crowds are compelling ingredients for great viewing. And in this country, where reality TV is king, a sports event with instant impact could even make it big. I’d love it to happen because, then, I wouldn’t get homesick in hill-climb season.
Wow, what a race... Head on over to TwinSix get a race report.
Little bit more detailed one here.
I really like this course, it levels the playing field for some of us who ride fat tires a bunch.
The Cat 3 field was a bit smaller than usual 18 I think, down from our 30+. I still recognized quite a few of the usual suspects and then Doug Long decided to throw his hat in the ring. CHoppe just told me that he was riding very well, but did not think much of it at the time.
Race started great, after the start I sat in comfortably about 4 back. The pace was not very crazy yet, so I just sat on some wheels and see how it plays out. Once section went around a pond, a steep downhill, left turn and then back up the hill. This was my first race on my killer set up disc carbon tubluars. The Tufo's comer on rails. This is my fist set of tubluars and I grew very confident in them very quickly.
Climbing back up this section behind the pond
On the first time through this section I was able to rail the corner and take up a position rather easily. Took up second and then took up a mini attack after the "spiral of death" and took the lead. Hells to the yes!!!
This is my first lead ever in a Cat 3 race and let me tell you I was planning to make the most of it.
Chasing Jake in the Spiral od
Lap 2 in and I had made a small gap on the guys behind me. Bombed down the hill behind the pond and I bit it hard! Ended up head over heels and went from First to Fifth just like that..
I was still feeling pretty good, messed up the bike a little bit but still rideable. Took up a place or two and then Doug Long blew right by me. I held on his wheel during the flat section up top, but could barley do that.
For those that don't know him, he just blew away the 60+ Masters and is now kicking my arse.
Down to a handful of laps to go and Doug and I are pulling back up to John and Jake in the lead. When I say Doug and I what I mean is Dough is pulling and I am chasing onto his wheel like a mad man.
3 laps to go and I think we have a good shot at getting back before the last lap.
Halfway though the lap and one of the race refs (I don't know what to call them) ran to us ringing a cow bell saying oilha[ofei one oijoij[sipoj] hjso[hoihj hoiafhe9 left....
You know, when your 30 min deep into a 45 min race, you have like 25% oxygen remaining in your head. After a couple turns later its slowly starts sinking in... Did she say this is the last lap?
I held up my pace contemplating what to do, I am not sure what in the hell is going on at this point. Then as were running out of real estate I thought it better to hammer it home, just in case it actually is the last lap. Caught up with Doug at the top of the hill and he held my wheel pretty good. We closed a little gap between 1 & 2 but it was too late... I sprinted the final straight away and looked back to see where Doug was and it became clear he had no idea this was the last lap. So I snatched 3rd on the day.
Felt a bit bad for Doug he was going really strong, had he not had a race under his belt I am pretty sure he would have whooped all our arses at the ripe age of 60 years young.
Owe, forgot to add the race was cut short because someone went down pretty hard I guess. Broke his collarbone and they had to cut it short to let the ambulance get to him. Hope you recover well and get back in the saddle soon.
360 crew put on a great event last weekend! I did my usual race Saturday and bail on Sunday weekend CX racing.
It was about 40 degrees out, but with that wind blowing it felt like it was 20 at times. The 3's did not go off til 2 so I spoke to Roger a bit about the course and it looked like we have yet another power course on our hands. Owe boy!
Pic from last weeks boss cross. Why are there so few pics of Saturday CX races?
I pre-registered this time so I could get a call up and not have to deal with all my starts in the back of the pack. Smart huh!!
After a couple pre laps it was go time. I remember last year, as long as I could get in the first three rows I was golden. I can "usually" clip in quick and take off ahead of the pack. Whistle blew, were off and I can't get clipped in for the life of me... YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!
Good little video of the start and then he must have passed me at some point because I finished right behind him.
I had a decent race.. Held onto the tail end of the lead group for about 2 laps where I began to fade a little bit. The course was balls out the entire time! The only time it wasn't was just before the finish area where there were some 180's etc.
After 2 laps I lost track of the top 3 but the rest of us kept pretty close the entire race. I was yo-yoing off the tail end of the top 10 with three guys riding my arse to keep me going. About as soon as I thought I was going to catch the Colavita/Parisi train in front of me they would catch a glimpse of me around the corner and pick up the pace and drop me again.
Every lap someone was going down on the soft corners. I did not find the course very technical but perhaps that's my problem. Not going fast enough to loose control! I was not able to capitalize on many of them, bunch of guys put the hurt-en on me that day.
Last lap and everyone is going 100% every second of this lap. I was jumping every corner trying to catch the boys in front and then a Tallgrass dude has closed a decent gap from behind. All for nothing though I stayed in the same position for the duration. 10th out of 30(something).
At first I was pretty disappointed in my place, but man, this race was fast. I about vomited when we finished, I had not felt like that in a while.
Here is a great video that was put together by Keith Walberg over on Vimeo (I can't figure out how to embed this one, you'll have to click the link)
Open guys up next and just have to say I love seeing the newbies in that class! You might be getting your ass handed to you right now, but its AWESOME! I love it!!
Saw this over on Tilfords site. Its awesome! I can't quit smiling when I watch it!!
Malcolm's first Descent of the first ramp on Hellion at Highland Park (age 4 yrs). Thanks everyone for your encouragement and comments. Malcolm lives in Maine. We ride often at Highland Mtn Bike Park enjoying not only the incredible trails, but the supportive and friendly community and staff which Mark Hayes has created. Kudos to all of you there, and thanks for having us. Malcolm also participted in The Maine Youth Bike Race Series (in Falmouth, ME) this past summer. It's another wonderful place for kids to get together to ride and have fun. Thanks to Andrew Freye for organizing this event. Malcs is indeed 4 years old and hopes that this video will encourage other kids and their caregivers to get out there and ride! Again, glad people are enjoying the video -Dan (aka Malc's Dad)
