azure sky

Blue sky (or not) II went down this weekend. At over two miles it was a fun course, and pretty long for this series. Rolling up to the race venue in the morning it was exciting to see the event on the City of Euclid electronic message board. I'm a bike fan of urban races. I live in the city, I don't have a car. I grew up in BFE, and though it is nice to visit, I don't really want to drive waaaaay oouut there to race a bike all the time. The tale of cyclocross coming about as a point to point race in Europe across farms and fields, is great but very situationally applicable. One of my favorite traits the US cyclocross, and the NEOCX series is the variety of locations offered. There are races out there in BFE and they're great races, and there are races near city centers and in urban parks; ultimately each provides their unique compliment to the series as is progress through the season.Somehow though, I tend to favor the re-appropriated city park races, no offense rural promoters,as its just one man's opinion ...what a ramble....

Having a single speed division that starts 2 minutes behind the normal field has completely spoiled me. Unlike past races the Blue sky started the SSCXers with the B-masters group.Over this season I have forgotten what mania the first lap of the race can be; with log-jams, pile ups, and getting stuck behind someone who can take a turn if their life depended on it. Starting with the rest of the B masters brought those memories back quickly, the entire first lap was a fight. ugggh.

2/3rds of the course was pretty plane jane grass crit, that was slowly turning into mud as the day went-on. The other 1/3 was some dry rollers in the woods, and a hellacious off-camber 100 yard wide series of mud-switch-backs on the shore of Lake Erie. The switchback had a 100 yard flat section that made a hairpin about face into a 100 yard stretch of mud on a 45 degree slope, which had another 180 turn at its end to a similar to the first part 100 yard muddying flat stretch. Somehow I was lucky enough to ride this every lap, and not burn myself up for the ensuing stair run up. Overall good course, great beer, and some jaw-droppingly awesome pulled pork sammies


"you can only race the people who show up" is a quote from zach(or james?) dieringer, after I told him, yeah I got 2nd but its because all the fast people are down at states. So for the first time in my storied 3 year career I ended up on the podium, and I was awarded a balling pair of super socks.