Beacon 'Cross Race

This is a play by play of the Beacon 'Cross race from last Sunday-

lap 1
The gun fires and Nikki and I are in the front. She is to my right and we are touching shoulders. I try not to push her off the road, but she is in my way to get the line I want in turn 1 to the right onto the double track. I manage to get in front and she is hot on my tail. Several turns later, a junior comes around me to the right, and rather than look beyond him to the course, my eyes rest on him and I stupidly follow him as he mistakenly makes to the left rather than right into a right-hand turn. We slam on the brakes and make a hard right, Nikki is back and passes me on the right – dammit! We gun it through the woods and down the gravel hill to the beach. We are running at the same pace now and then turn right, bounding up the stairs back onto the sandy tarmac. We jump on our bikes and I am chasing her through the grass as we make our way across quickly varying surfaces until we hit the sand hill. We both accelerate into it, knowing that without enough momentum we will not make it through the deep sand, and just as we begin to climb, we run into some C-category men who have fallen victim to the sand hill. I stumble off my bike. Nikki falters too, but I will not let her stay in front! I pick up my bike and sprint up the hill. Sally flies by me up the climb, as she was able to stay on the bike. Man, she looks really strong–she quickly gains about 10 yards on me by the time I remount the bike and get back into it. I need to catch her and pass her quickly, but she apparently has rockets up her ass, and I can’t bridge the gap just yet. We snake through the slippery corners and make our way to the sand pit, which is deep and treacherous. I jam on the pedals and almost make it across the pit, but a couple of feet from the end, my front wheel catches and as I quickly try to dismount, but my right short leg gets caught on the saddle! #$%@#^$%^
I fall on my left side and can’t unclip to save my life. I am wildly contorting myself to move at once out from under the bike and forward, and I lose precious time as Sally gets away and Nikki is gaining on me!!! I run up, jump on and try to make it up the steep hill but am stopped midway by fallen riders. I run past them, jump back on the bike and bomb downhill to the base of the amphitheatre of pain. Throw the bike on my shoulder and make it up the towering amphitheatre steps as quickly as I can. Make it around the last few turns of the lap and then up the road–I sprint to try to catch Sally.

lap 2
We make a right back into the woods and I am gaining on her fast. I catch her right before the first left sandy turn, take the best line on the inside, and inadvertently cut her off as I come out of the turn. I slow down way too much through the sand, and have to pound on the pedals to accelerate once again. In doing so, I manage to drop her! This is it. I now have to increase whatever gap I have on them as much as possible to give me some margin for anything that could happen… I am going hard and fairly smoothly now, although not so great through the corners… but anyhow, feeling good on the straight sections…


end of lap 3 and lap 4:
I glance over my shoulder as I come out of the sharp turn back onto the road, and damn, I see a ponytail! I do a double take–yes, it is a girl. I don’t recognize her. I sprint up the hill and duck back onto the double track. I am pedaling furiously now, because dammit, I don’t want to lose in the last lap! I don’t look behind me. If she catches me now, then she deserves it, because I’m going hard. I get to the deep gravel downhill to the beach, and my cornering has suddenly become even worse than before, as I swerve way out before turning onto the gravel. But I manage to hold my line down the hill and make it for one more run on the sand. I sprint, holding my bike by the top tube rather than shouldering it, partly as an experiment, partly because I am tired. The experiment fails as I realize that the bike is not high enough to neatly clear the high stairs leaving the beach. I clumsily get over them, and remount the bike. I manage to finish the rest of the course rather cleanly, and when I get to the final stretch on the road, I sprint to the finish line. I cross it- I am feeling a bit sick. But I won. I got a 45 second gap on the second place girl.

This is what you feel like after you do a cross race.











The weekend before was the opening of the Verge Mid Atlantic Series, and two of the coolest races on the calendar, Granogue and Wissahickon drew huge crowds. I noticed an abundance of really cute dogs such as this one.