CX Nation at the Stick
It was good to see that BASP didn't pack it in after last year. Now they are back for 4 races with the first one last Sunday at the Stick. They course was a similar layout to years ago with a little twist - The Go Pro Flyover. After a couple years of trying the fellas at BASP rolled out the flyover - run up the stairs on one side and ride down the other. Then, you get to ride underneath it. Euro class....
Good warm-up, watched one of my athletes race and then lined up on the front row of the Master's A's race. This year I have had some early success, but the BASP is really where all the great riders in the Bay Area come out to play. 3 National champs in the front row and 3 "not" National Champs. I was one of the "nots". Doesn't matter though. I was going out hard.
Brock Dickie got a great jump, along with Coats; but I was right on their wheel. On the second turn Coats went in hot and crashed into a pole. Amazingly we avoided him and then he got ride back up and was right there with us. I heard there was a crash behind us and after the first lap the three of us had a huge lead. Coats went to the front and started drilling it. I tried my best to just hang on, but by the end of the second lap I was off the back. Myrah passed me going Mach 10 at the end of the second lap. Then, came Hoefner. Each time I tried to latch on, but got popped off each time.
So I was sitting fourth and eating tons of dirt. The course was very bumpy and I lowered the pressure in my tires down after a pre-ride. Because of this I really had to pay attention in the turns. Getting squirrly, look out. Hoefner broke his seat, so now I was sitting 4th in the race. Murray Swanson of Pen Velo got past me and I was starting to get pissed. When will people stop passing me? Come on, stop it!
At this point I was looking behind me. Always a bad thing to do. I saw Hoefner and his teammate Jon Mundelius charging hard. They were actually drafting each other and pulling me back. Ugh..I thought this was cross and not road racing. How could they? Eventually Jon caught me and we battled for a couple laps.
He ended up dropping me on the last lap and I finished gasping for air in the 6th place. You would have thought that the air would be moist when riding next to the SF Bay. Not the case.... So all and all a pretty good race for me. I finished a little higher than last year and I will only get stronger as the season progresses. Hopefully the rest of these guys get weaker.
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