Beat the Freak Cyclocross #3 and #4

Traveled back to Fayetteville, TN over the weekend for some more cyclocross action.

Once again, on Saturday, conditions were not perfect. Some would call it typical Belgian Cyclocross weather- mud, temps in the mid 40’s, damp air, and wind. OK, so some people call this perfect cyclocross weather. I guess it could be much worse…

I lined up with a small group of Cat 3 men (including Ryan). No other women showed up for the 1/2/3 race, so I figured I’d test my legs against the guys. I ended up doing pretty well- Ryan won, and I finished 3rd- only about 10 seconds back from a guy that I tried my damnedest to pull back for the last 4 laps of the race. It would have been cool for us to get a 1-2, but I still turned in some good lap times and felt like I’d left everything out on the course.

Sunday was a gorgeous day. The skies cleared, temps were in the 50s, and the ground dried out a little bit. The course was nice, too- only one set of barriers! Ryan had upgraded overnight, so I raced against 3 other guys. I was hoping that the guy I’d almost beaten on Saturday would show up for round #2, but he was absent. Two of the guys were overnight 4-3 upgrades, so I had no idea how I’d fare against them. I had a couple of changes I wanted to make to my strategy- I decided I’d try to spin less, and I wanted to use a different “lifting” form with my bike over the barriers.

Both things made me a little bit faster- the bigger gear got my heart rate down a little, and lifting the bike so that I was flicking the wheels out to the side meant that I didn’t have to lift/jump as high over the barriers. That will be a nice skill to remember whenever I have a barrier to hop w/out much traffic around :) Even with my best effort, I still only managed a 3rd place. Once again, though, it was a hard-fought 3rd. I was dead by the time I finished!

Hopefully I can put that type of effort out next weekend @ the USGP race in Louisville. I’ll be testing the legs out against a much bigger group than what I’m used to, so it should be interesting.

Tonight- more Cyclocrunk!!!!

2 thoughts on “Beat the Freak Cyclocross #3 and #4

  1. Andrea,
    Great job at Freaks this weekend.

    Here’s the link to the shoe driers I won at cross the way that you asked about. Not sure about the odor claims (my shoes are still newish) but the fast drying is no joke. Like I said Saturdays rain and leaving them in the car overnight (which frosted over) had them dry in the am. http://www.stuffitts.com/

  2. the forarm on the saddle and the bike kicked out to the side is what katie compton was teaching the girls at the clinic in cincy a couple weekends ago. great for shorter people and is used as a blocking tactics in europe. 40cm barriers (uci legal) seems tall. the first day i was bouncing wheels off barriers when jumping, until i started doing it this way. kona guys (treborn and wicks) didn’t even break stride over barriers. i think that was there normal step.

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