CX practice

We had a fun and productive CX practice last night at Edgewater. Since there was less daylight, we got started on the practice lap promptly at 6:15, but with sunset at around 6:31 we were barely able to get 1/2 an hour of good riding in. Hopefully the start time will get pushed up just a hair for next week, and then the time change on 11/4 will give us a extra hour of CX pleasure.

The course was short and quick this week. No run-ups on the monster hill by the lake and no single track. There was pavement galore spread out over 3 different sections and the only tricky terrain was the loose gravel near the picnic area. There were the usual tight turns, including one particularly nasty switchback from a downhill to uphill around a tree. Rick was having lots of problems following the course at this point, and kept going on the wrong side of the fence as we headed back along the road.

I had an issue with the barrier rope on the practice lap, which was kinda embarrassing. I tripped on the first barrier (tripwire), pulling the stake out. Then my bike hit the 2nd string as I struggled to keep my feet under me and not face plant. After fixing the barriers, I caught back on.

Rick and I definitely got to practice some CX tactics. A rider in a Nat City Points kit (don't know his name) was scrapping it out with us for most of the race. I had first caught up to him on the start of lap 2 and let him pull me through a fast, long, and windy pavement section. Once through the pavement, I attacked hard and caught up to Rick (almost to the point that I would have run into his rear wheel HARD as he was taking a corner). I stayed with Rick and the guy from Nat City was close on my wheel. He would usually attack in the grass section along the road and then we would pass him back around the 2 turns before the barriers. He would then attack again when we were along the road on the other side of the bridge, and we would get him in the turns and up the hill at the end of the lap. We were doing a good job of gapping before the long pavement section, but he always kept creeping back up.

At one point, the Nat City rider did get a really good gap coming toward the end of the 2nd to last lap. We traded positions a couple of time and I sprinted to catch his wheel (with Rick grabbing my wheel) on the fast pavement. We attacked again and probably traded spots as usual, but after crossing the bridge Rick shouted that I had a gap.

I geared down and pushed harder. Meanwhile Rick stayed at the same pace, if not easing up a little. This forced the other rider to attack around him. When he did, Rick counter attacked hard and was able to drop him. He caught up to me right at the finish. I'm not sure how many laps we had got in at this point, but it was getting pretty dark and people had already headed back to the parking lot. I'll take a look at my Polar data to glean some more details later.