BCA Cross

2nd race of the season for me and first for the Sportif Series is BCA Cross.  This was my first Sportif race.  I knew that Sportif races didn't tend to have as many racers so I was looking forward to a less frantic/crowded start.  I raced in the Cat 3/4 race that started at 11:45 with the junior race starting on our heels at 11:46.  The weather was just about perfect for such a race....I was a bit chilly warming up but I knew that would mean ideal conditions during the race.  The course conditions were dry with some soft spots.  The course was made up of lots of flat grassy sections chock full of bumps - I've never been on a course this bumpy and pot-holed before!

The start was pretty uneventful with about 30 riders in my race.  After the short start section, I got into the grass somewhere around 10-14th place.  I settled into a rhythm and started to fight my way up some positions.  Near the end of the first lap or into the second lap I was in 4th or 5th place and about 10 seconds behind the leaders.  3rd, 4th, and 5th, we all rode fairly closely together.  This kept up for another lap and then I decided to try and bridge the gap to catch 1st and 2nd.

I attacked and passed the guy in 3rd and started making a hard effort going after the leaders.  I was about halfway up to them when I took a turn a little too wide and caught my pedal on one of the stakes holding up the tape (when pushing hard, the first thing to go is your brain).  I got off and ran to get momentum back up and was caught by passed by 2 riders as I recovered.  At some point this became 3rd - 6th all together and I really didn't want to end up in 6th! We lost one rider when he attacked, got ahead to third and then crashed on an off-camber section...then there were three (I didn't realize he wasn't with us anymore till later).

All together for a while.

I found myself in 4th place sitting behind a Twenty20 cyclist. I decided that my handling was terrible and that I needed to watch this guy's lines to try and conserve energy for a later attack.

Watch his lines....

I stuck with him for a good 2 laps watching his lines, watching when he pedaled, and trying to really focus on my handling.  I was actually feeling really good and rested when I attacked with 2.5 laps to go.  Before I knew it, I was about 20 seconds from the leaders and 20 seconds from my chasers.  I pretty much stayed equidistant between the two groups until the last lap.

On the last lap I put in more effort to guarantee that I'd stay away from my pursuers and actually started to close on the leaders.  They saw me coming at one of the turn-arounds and also started to put in more effort.  Toward the back half of the course, I could see that they were still too far away to be overtaken and that I'd made a nice gap behind me so I took it somewhat easier toward the end.  I didn't want to screw anything up due to a crash at the very end.  In the end I was third place!  All that training and advice from Pat Blair has really been paying off!

Third!

It was a fun race.  Next up Charm City!

Tom