Cyclocrunk #1

As I mentioned in my last post, Tuesday night was the first of three Cyclocrunk races.

Side note: It’s Cyclocrunk. It’s also cyclocross. Not cyclecrunk and cyclecross. Get it right.

The basics of Cyclocrunk- people of all ages and abilities (and I do mean ALL abilities) show up at Tobey Field (near the Fairgrounds), pay $7, and race a cyclocross course that includes an inordinate amount of gigantic barriers, in the dark, for 30-45 minutes. At the end of the 3-race series, the promoter takes all of the entry fee money to Young Avenue Deli, opens a bar tab on it, and the participants can have all the cheap beer they want utilizing the bar tab/entry fee money. It’s prettymuch a giant party with a few cyclocross races thrown in.

Oh yeah, and whoever wins the most races gets crowned the King and Queen of Crunk. Russ Griffin and I are the current champs (I’m not going to post any sort of language warning for this photo, because I already told the people who are offended by the “F” word to GTFO)

crunk

Photo/Design credit to Micheal Carpenter @ Switch Creative

The actual race was pretty good for me. Since it was my first cyclocross race of the season, I was a little bit cautious. In previous years, I’ve had issues with spraining my right hip adductor during uber-high-speed dismounts. If you understand kinesiology and muscle physiology (remember, I may be a bike mech now, but I also have a masters in ex phys!), you would understand the musculoskeletal impact of jumping off of a bike at speeds upwards of 15mph. It’s definitely something you should work your way in to in order to avoid over-stress type injuries.

So, I ended up racing at about 85-90% of my “bleeding out of the eyeballs” pace until the final lap, where I kicked it up to 100% OMGWTF pace. I felt good about most of my dismounts/barriers/remounts. I think the 2-step drills are paying off, because I was a lot more comfortable with landing and hopping on as soon as possible following the barriers. Oh yeah, I also beat the handful of other ladies that showed up.W00t!

Next week, I’ve been insructed to “take the governer off.” I’m good with that, because I want to beat a few more of the guys next week. Now, I just have to decide what I’m going to wear. Seems like no matter what kit I put on, people have to comment- this week it was “why are you wearing an Outdoors,Inc. kit?” Um, I work there. I think it’s pretty. WTF am I supposed to say? I’ll probably go M-B just to show that M-B will continue to dominate the Memphis cross scene until the end of time (Russ is an M-B teammate, as are a majority of the top 5 finishers). I also have some old Kenda kit and an old Le Coq Sportif jersey I found at an estate sale. There’s a Twin 6 jersey in my drawer as well, so there’s no telling WHO Andrea will be riding for NEXT WEEK!

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