SPIN CX practice

Wednesday was a fun and really good CX practice out at Edgewater. Bart helped Zak layout the course and it was ripe with wet off camber turns.

After the intro lap we took off for the practice race. I stayed behind Bart and Zak because the course was long and I think we all wanted to be sure where we were going. The first lap wasn't a killer pace. About 1/4 way into the 2nd lap, I passed Zak and Bart going downhill heading into a long sweeping off camber section (Zak was unclipping his inside foot through there). I held the lead for almost 1/2 a lap where Zak put on a strong move after a corner on the open grass. Zak was slowly getting away from me and I got close to him after the other technical off camber downhill corner. Once we got up the hill on the road, he gassed it again at the parking lot and got a strong gap. I managed to keep him in site for the rest of the practice and was able to bring him back somewhat on the optional 5th lap.

The disc brakes on my bike were really making up for their weight penalty. The Ritchey SpeedMax Cross tires I used held their traction very well. I did end up going down once heading into the single track on the 4th lap, but that was mainly because of mishandling on my part. I was pretty worried at this point because I lost some time on Zak and I saw Bart heading into the single track just as I exited it. The temp was perfect with the rain, not too cold, but warm enough that I needed to keep my jersey and vest unzipped at the top.