For most of us, the season’s sadly yet ironically gladly winding down. Nearly two months straight of CX racing on top of a road and/or MTB season that probably started back around April can do that to you. The body and the mind seem to be getting ready for a little R&R (maybe Rare Vos & Recovery?). But there’s still some racing to be had. With the cancellation of the Greene CX event, the Ommegangsters found a couple of CX alternatives to keep the ‘cross fires stoked a bit longer
Chenango Tango?
One alternative CX outlet came in the form of a last minute, informal CX event down near Bingo land in Chenango Forks – the Chenango Forks Crossfire. King Karl mixed it up with the Swan-man and a few other strong south-towners in the “mature dudes” division winding up with a 2nd place spot. You best be ready if you’re headed to the Dave Panella Memorial “KX” event this weekend as the Bingo-landarians found a way to keep some race fitness in the legs on what was looking like a down weekend.
Road Trip
Ommegangsters Drummroll and Eric the Bolt, along with Omme-buddy Bryan B headed east to the Cycle Smart Invitational (CSI) in Northampton, MA to see what one of the big time New England Verge CX series events was like. We rolled in Friday eve to the number pick-up location where they had a nice little spread set-up complete with a variety of munchies and brews (including some Omme’s!!) as weel as some CX race vids on the tele. We actually had a chance to chat with Adam Myerson a little and he said to tell Skinny Phil he said hello. He was psyched to hear Skinny was having a great season. We didn’t even notice, until Adam said “hey Jeremy”, that J-Pow himself was in the room watching the CX vids.
Next morning we got to the race and we chuckled as various people were asking us if we brought any Ommegang. One dude even asked if we brought any Adoration. Soon enough it’s time to line up for the 35+ Masters event. After all numbers were called up, we looked behind us and ummm, we were wayyyyyyy in the back – there were probably 60-70 people in front of us and probably not even a full row behind us. A look at the race results will show we got our arses kicked (placing in the 50’s/60’s out of a finishing field of 74) but there’s a story within the story. We learned that with a field that big, you have rather limited chances starting in the back. On the first lap, the start bottle-necked, the run-up bottle-necked, and the sand pit bottle-necked. After a lap or two, things spread out a bit and you were now relegated to pretty much battling with the 5-10 guys in front of you and the 5-10 behind you. Afterward, we cleaned up and stuck around and watched some of the other races where we saw our Spokeposter friends Sarah & Wayne. In the pro men’s race, about 125 meters into a vicious start they stacked it up right in front of us with bikes and bodies flopping all over. We quickly backed away from the barricade tape as we realized getting clipped by a bike (with or without a rider on it) would not be a good thing.
Day two found a course with a few different twists and turns while sharing some of the same features from the day before. Drumroll raced the 45+ this day and then cheered/heckled his road trip companions when they raced the 35+ right after. Results on day two were somewhat similar with Drumroll taking 24th in a field of 46 while Eric & Bryan fought once again to be in the 50’s. Not sure if Eric got scored correctly but seemed like he was up a bit further.
All in all it was a cool experience. Good people, good food, good brews, and a pretty damn good event. We each noted that if we get back to a Verge or similar “big event” in the future, we either had to sign up really early to start closer to the front or we would have to use some of our new experience and knowledge to hopefully grab a few more spots when starting in the back.
This weekend on deck: Dave Panella Memorial in Bingo-land and the final installment in the NYCross series in Delmar, NY
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