So since its now summer in February on the east coast, weather conditions were looking great for my first race of the season. The 50 mile Southern Cross (final 2011/first 2012 race of the American UltraCross Series) was a good test of fitness for the many upcoming NUE 100 milers on my schedule. So, packed up the VW Rabbit Friday morning and began the 7 hour drive to Montaluce Winery. My plan was to get there in time to check in and do some pre-riding of the 'cross sections of the course, and get a good prerace workout. However, being me, I didn't get on the road until after 11 and it was getting dark by the time I rolled in to the winery and I barely made it 15 mins before the end of check-in. Oh well. That night it was back to the cabin to relax and eat lots of food, finish swapping wheels and mess around with the bike a bit, and get some sleep.
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Figure 1
The race course was a figure 8 (with a tail) configuration, as shown in Figure 1, with racers riding through fun cyclocross sections on the way out of the winery and on the way back in. In between, we would be hitting some fast pavement, which changed to dirt/gravel after a few miles. Over some rollers, up a long steep in places 5 mile first main climb, ride along the ridge for a while, down a fast descent, some more speedy pavement, onto more dirt and then back up the mountain again with a more gradual ~10ish mile climb. Finally, ripping down another dirt descent (which is also the big climb seen in Fool's Gold), back onto pavement, closing the figure 8 and back the tail into the winery for the final 'cross section. Whew. The long extended climbs should benefit me, as I enjoy long forays into the pain cave. If this race description has completely baffled you, an easier way to get the picture would be to look at the map of my ride - http://app.strava.com/activities/4563107
Anyway, on race day I was feeling pretty good and got to the course with over an hour to warm up and take care of last minute details- minor brake adjustments, dropping the kids off at the pool for the final time of the morning, etc. Weather was beautiful, sunny and cool-ish, staying around 45 degrees for the day, which was actually perfect conditions for my clothing choice.
A little after 10:00 about 300 of us rolled off the start line and into the first CX section. I got a good start and was up with the lead 10-20 riders, flying down through a field and over a log obstacle, into a narrow section and into a steep run up. I was able to ride through all of this pretty easily since I was on my mountain bike with fat tires and low gearing, and was able to pass most of the riders in front of me. On the way out of the winery onto the first paved section, I sat in the lead for a good... oh, 30 seconds or a minute, until the eventual winner of the race, Thomas Turner, and 2nd Stephen Hyde, went cruising by. I tried to hang for a minute but couldn't quite match their pace on my MTB, so dropped back and rode with the lead group of 10 or so guys, including speedy Garth Prosser and Charlie Storm, as we took turns pulling until the bottom of the first climb. Garth had some really bad luck and flatted (the first of 4?) right at the bottom, and was the first casualty, leaving me with no one to goof around with for the rest of the race. The pace was very high, Brian Toone (the one other mountain bike and eventual 3rd place), led Charlie Storm and 2 other riders up, I dropped back a little ways back with some other guys around me. By the time we got to the top 5 miles later and 2000 feet higher, I was alone with no one in sight in front or behind, sitting in 7th place. I cruised as fast as possible down the descent, but a killer headwind kept speeds from reaching the expected 45+ mph.
Through the pavement, over the rollers and into the second huge climb. Now I was starting to feel pretty good, the race was half over and I went as hard as possible up this climb. Getting up near the top, I started catching some guys that had ridden with Brian up the first climb. Saw one speck way up the road, he was bobbing and wobbling around and lookin pretty rough, and soon he was out of sight behind. Then another. Then, I was in fifth and pretty happy about that. Then, I saw another guy up ahead and as we were reaching the very top, I really dug deep and caught up and came by him. This happened to be Charlie again, and he actually wasn't looking as wasted as the last two guys. In fact, he wasn't wasted at all as he promptly came back around me again! Over the next roller I sprinted past and got a good 50 foot gap on him going into the big dirt road downhill. With him on a cross bike and me on the fast 29er with disc brakes and fat tires, I figured I would be able to drop him. But, every time I looked back, there he was just sitting there 20 feet behind me ripping around all the corners just as fast as me. Crap. And now we were back on the pavement with about 14 miles to go to the finish. We rode together for a while taking turns pulling and chatted a bit, he had gotten a flat tire and Brian had gotten away but probably was only a minute or so up the road. That was encouraging. We started back up the "tail" for the last few miles into the winery, and coming up one of the paved rollers Chalie took off and I couldn't match him. I stayed a few hundred yards behind but couldn't match his speed on the pavement.
Finally, we were back to the winery. The final CX section was fun, with a brutal steep run-up and extended climb afterwards. I was able to ride it, and made up a lot of ground on Charlie, 4th place was looking within reach again! He was only like 30 feet in front of me! Of course, we were only going 4 mph, so when things turned down again he was 250 feet ahead. Anyway, it was close, but he held me off and we finished 10 seconds apart. How exciting. Glad to be finished, I changed out of the spandex and had some post-race lasagna and drove back to the cabin for a shower and some beer.
The post race party was a good time, tons of raffle prizes were given away, and several people even got rewarded for finishing well! All in all it was a good day.
