MOUTH FULL OF DIRT : Super D's Blog: Cross My Heart

I will start off writing about November by mentioning that two of my awesome sponsors already committed to my 2018 season. Both First Endurance and Maxxis have pledged support for another season. This will be my eighth year of working with First Endurance, and lucky year 13 with Maxxis! I am so grateful to both of them for helping me out when nearly every other sponsor I have talked to during the past 8-10 years has blown me off. I did a lot of sponsor hunting while we were in Utah, sending request after request and really didn't get any positive feedback from it all. I'll talk about that in another post. Right now, I just want to focus on the two who stand behind me and help me to be able to race year after year. Thanks so much First Endurance and Maxxis!

https://firstendurance.com/

https://www.maxxis.com/

I was bummed to miss the first part of cross season due to not having a bike. I know you can race cross on a mountain bike, but really it's not near as much fun. My Epic is meant to tear up singletrack, not grass. While we were in Utah in October, I managed to locate a used aluminum Trek Crockett 7 frame that a guy was getting rid of. It was in great shape and he was willing to part with it at a good price. It arrived to our house about the time we got back from our trip and I began to build it up with a mix of parts from the old bike and some new drivetrain parts. I finally have new shifters to replace the ones I bent in my big crash at Cincinnati several years ago. Here was the result of my build-up:

Trek Crockett 7 with Bontrager wheels off the old Redline

With my Easton carbon wheels added

It's nothing fancy, but it will get me back to racing and kept me within my low budget that I have for cross. For some of you that want to know the specs, it has a mix of Ultegra and 105 10-speed components with a well-worn, but still great FSA Gossamer crank. Of course, both sets of wheels have Maxxis tires on board. I tend to like the Raze. There's a trusty Thomson seatpost with an SDG Ti saddle on top. I will be running Xpedo M-Force Ti pedals for cross this year, just like I did for most of the mountain bike season.

My only ride time on the newly built bike was a 20 minute session in the yard to make sure it would shift and that everything was set-up close to my liking. Then I took it out to the first local race of the season for me, a double-header in Kingston Springs, TN at Cross the Harpeth. The bike felt a little odd in my pre-ride on the first day of racing. It felt short and cramped a bit on the descents. Jeremy and Rick from MOAB Bikes were there and said I should try flipping my stem to stretch me out more, but it was too close to the start for me to go changing something major like that.

The first race of the day for me was the Pro/1/2/3 for 60 minutes. I had a bad start and felt awkward on the bike the first half of the race. I also felt really weak once we got up to speed. I think my body went into shock because it hadn't gone this hard since the State Championship mountain bike race at Montgomery Bell almost two months before. We had 12 riders that started the race and I was mid-pack for most of the time, swapping positions back and forth with a group of four or five riders.

In the First Endurance kit today.

Photo by Tammy Richardson

With about four laps to go, I finally started to calm down and settle into the pain that is cyclocross racing. I finally worked my way through the group I had been battling with for the last 35 minutes. I made it up to fifth and set out for fourth. I was gaining on fourth place Travis Werts and matching the pace of third place Zdenek Fiebinger, but it was too little too late. I couldn't catch either of them and ended up taking home fifth on the day. I had a great ride for me, especially being on a brand new bike that feels so different compared to my old bike. I like the new position though. It feels faster and more powerful, I just need to get used to how the bike handles in this position. The frame is so much stiffer too which really makes it feel like I am being propelled forward. Seven or eight years ago I would have said my performance on this day would have won me a state championship, but not anymore. The depth of the competition in cross is so much higher now that a spectacular performance barely lands you a top five.

Finishing up the Pro/1/2/3 race

Photo by Marsha Williams

A few minutes later I was back on course for the Singlespeed race. I was way overgeared for this race like most races as my All City SS is designed more to be a road cruiser than to be raced for cyclocross, but I enjoy it as it pushes me to my limits and allows me to enter a second race. We had eight starters in SS. The course had a huge hill that really stung the legs on a bike with one gear. I was unable to ride the main climb the first two laps, but found the strength to clean the whole thing on laps 3 and 4. It didn't help my position much though as I churned my way only to sixth at the finish.

Day 2 saw a tougher Pro/1/2/3 field with 14 starters. The race course was mostly the same, just in the opposite direction. We lost one short, steep climb, but it was replaced by a challenging set of stairs for a run-up. I didn't get a good start and was 11th the first lap. I had another great ride for me and felt strong for the full hour, but only managed to pick off two riders and finish 9th. Most of these guys are in really good shape right now and I am just coming back to racing after several weeks of minimal riding, so I was happy with how I rode and finished. I also felt more comfortable on the new bike and was a bit faster in the corners today.

Jeremy Chambers and Harrison Klapheke battled for the win from start to finish.

Alan Mittelsdorf had a great ride.

Patrick Harkins leading a small group early in the race

Travis Werts

Zdenek Fiebinger

Alistair Sponsel chose to go with a mountain bike for today's course.

Me early in the race

Paul Carter running the stairs

The battle for the Pro/1/2/3 win was between Jeremy Chambers and Harrison Klapheke. Harrison won on Saturday on his mountain bike, which isn't much of a disadvantage on this technical course. Harrison wound up attacking Jeremy at the barriers the final lap. Harrison was able to bunny-hop them on his mountain bike while Jeremy dismounted. That opened up a gap that would stick all the way to the finish line and nab Harrison a sweep of the weekend's races. A video is posted below the pictures if you want to see a little of the Pro/1/2/3 race.

Jeremy continues to lead Harrison later in the race

Alessandro Zanetti

Big Trav

Me still chasing hard, but couldn't catch those guys ahead again today.

Video: Scenes from the Pro/1/2/3 race at Cross the Harpeth #2

I was pretty smoked after the Pro/1/2/3 race, but there was no time to rest. Singlespeed was up next. I thought the course on Saturday was tough, but I think Sunday was even worse. There was a tough climb after the stairs that went up behind the baseball field that nearly killed me every lap. I was able to clean it once and it made me feel like I really did something. It took absolutely everything I had in my body to get up to the top. It was as much biceps and triceps pulling and pushing the handlebar as it was legs.

We had six starters in SS and I was last off the line on the start. The big hill got me dropped the first lap, but I did manage to pick up a few spots later in the race and end up with a 4th place finish. I was absolutely destroyed after the race. I managed to irritate a group of hecklers on the hill during the race. They were trying to give cashew hand-ups on the big climb. Grabbing cashews during a race would have been a first for me, but I couldn't take a hand off to grab for the cashews. That apparently offended them and they were quite brutal towards me the rest of the race. I asked for pizza one lap and they told me I was too slow, that the pizza goes to the fast riders. That was funny, but other comments were a bit more harsh. Then one guy threw something towards me the last lap, which is a bit over the line. To me throwing things is not heckling. That's going towards real harassment and beyond just some guys having fun. He didn't hit me so I let it go, but the guy shouldn't be surprised when a rider decides to get off and "heckle" him back.

That was a tough weekend! It was a good way to jump-start my off-season training. I am hoping to do some more cross before real winter arrives and hopefully do well at the State Championships in December in Franklin, TN at the Crossfire CX. I'm not sure where all the photos below came from, but I tried to give credit to everyone that sent me pictures. Thanks!

Singlespeed start

CX 4/5 Women start

photo by Jack Kapanka

Dina also raced her first cross race of the season on the second day at Cross the Harpeth. She did the CX 4/5 Women, which was on course at the same time as Singlespeed and Juniors, so I got to race at the same time as her. Cross is tough on Dina as she only has a mountain bike. She is more comfortable cornering and descending on the mountain bike, but has a hard time getting on and off the bike, as a 29" bike is really big for her. It makes for awkward carrying too, so she dropped a lot of time on the barriers and stairs today. Her field was tough with eight good riders on the line. She battled most of the race and ended up in 7th at the end. Not bad for someone who never practices cross, but we have to work on those dismounts Dina!