NBX Cross Race Report, day 1

Man it was cold this weekend. And really windy down there in Warwick(really East Gloucester). Nice and sunny on Saturday and lets start there.

I took my place next to the juniors as usual. Yeah, yeah and Ryan, and Chandler. Word around the heated bath-house was how flat the course was. "It's a grass crit!" "Hope you brought your road bike!" "You good at road racing?" "Total power course!" True, it definitely was not a very interesting course. But there was no riding the beach, so that made it interesting.

I think the most interesting part was the way the start worked out. We started on the pavement and had ages of room before we entered grass, tape and a couple of turns. But still it was so wide that the group/mass didn't break up, and there was lots of looking around to see what was going on and scoping moves.
I was up in the front and had to play some defense as we came into the first hairpin, where things got a little sticky. I rode around second into the back stretch before the sand and fricken Nate Morse had a date with the ground as he tried to make the sketchiest passes in the loose gravel. Seriously, just settled down! There's a huge train of people wheel to wheel. No one's going any where here.

The juniors led us around wicked hard, and I thought to me self, "This is hard. There's no way any of these guys can keep this up, if I'm having to work this hard..." But still as Curtis dangled out the front, I asked Chandler, "Can he really keep that up and stay out there?" The answer was decidedly NO.

So we made it around the course up the ride up, and almost to the carousel when Chandler got the boneheaded idea to pass Nate on the inside of an S turn. Seriously! Seriously...not only was that a retarded place to pass.(wait 'till we come out of a turn, or it's straight!) BUT THERE ARE STUMPS PAINTED BRIGHT ORANGE!!! Seriously Chandler? Seriously...

Yeah. So. Needless to say Chandler stacked it up on the bright orange stump and I had no choice but to pin his leg into his frame and fall down. The good news was that Ryan White fell with us, and that seemed to break his spirits for the day. A few people avoided our melee and got by. Namely Adam St Germain.

My stem was tweaked, and I had to stop at the barriers to (kind of) correct it. At that point I was feeling pretty dejected, and thought the race was riding away. But anything can happen, so I gave it a go. I passed by Chandler and give him a consolatory pat on the back, and then put my head down. I was surprised and pleased to see Kris Dobie rocking the Putney kit right in front of me. Plus the target Donny Green was not too far down the road.

On the last lap I saw Donny slip out on the turn going into the barriers and that was all I needed to put on the gas and pull him in. But to tell you the truth it's almost scary being behind that kid. For someone who rides his bike all day as a messenger, his lack of handling skills is staggering. On the pavement before the bathhouse, I watched as he went off the pavement (on a wide open two lane road) and nearly flipped over the guard rail. I did not want to be the caboose on his train...wait is that dirty?

So I passed him, and almost caught St Germain, ARg so close! 2nd!