The Venue....

Not many cross racers really know what goes into putting on a race.  Yes, we volunteer, participate and sometimes talk to the promoters, but you don't really know until you jump in the trenches with (insert a city or county or some other governmental agency) and try to negotiate.  It all goes well until you tell them that you are going to be tearing up their beloved turf.  "Where is Fifi going to go number 2 or where will the drug dealers deal their drugs?"  Well, it is only for a day.  Can't they go somewhere else?

So we approached the city of Santa Rosa a few years ago with a proposal.  Give us this land because we want to make a cyclocross course.  I had teamed up with Carlos and his Bike Monkey crew to "up the ante" with Santa Rosa cyclocross.  Carlos had been running a group of races in city parks, but with the majority of races in December, January and February...well you get the idea.  They were great fun for participants, not so much for the people who used the park afterwards.  We needed a new plan.  When we asked the city to use some land in A Place to Play Park, they just said, "Yes, do whatever you want."  I literally fell over.  But then I realized that this park really was wasteland.  Really...A Place to Play Park was built on old wastewater ponds.

It didn't matter to me though.  I just wouldn't tell the racers.  So we went about forming a cyclocross park.  If you have ever been to the park or to a race there, you know that it is made up of two baseball fields and 6 soccer fields, but we couldn't use those, the grass was too nice.  So they gave us this scrub brush area and we made our own park.  With the help of Brian Neary landscape and his box scraper I formed the course over a couple days and then revamped it this year.  The clay-like dirt makes it a little worrisome for rainy days, which we have had both last year and this year for the second race at the park.  We like mud though, right?  Well, this mud eats derailleurs for breakfast.  8 to 10 last year and baker's dozen this year.

The first race of the Santa Rosa Cup was held at the park.  We had some rain a few days before the race, but by race day it was 80 degrees.  Typical October weather in California.  I decided to not only do all the set up and race directing (9 hours the day before and 10 hours the day of), but I was determined to race this year too.  So after all those hours I lined up next to a small group of 15 or so for the 35+ A's.  Local hardman Big Miguel Crawford took the whole shot and immediately drilled it.  Mig runs the chaos that is the Grasshopper races that are so popular in the Santa Rosa area.  I tucked in like a former crit rider and went for a ride.  By lap 2 he had dropped the field except for 4 of us.  Once there was a slowing that's when former pro rider Brian Finnerty (another Cal Giant Berry! Ugh...they keep propagating, like the berries themselves)  saw his chance and drilled it even farther.  Bye-bye Brian see you at the podium ceremony.

World Champion Don Myrah took it from there, dropping Big Mig for the remainder of the race, except for the last lap.  I could't believe it when Miguel punched it past us on really the only place on the course where you could pass.  Myrah and I tried to follow, but the heat was too much, by which I mean the pace, not the weather.  Finnerty had already accepted his bouquet by the time our panting tongues crossed the finish line.  Big Mig second and the Champion 3rd.  Me 4th. Another great race.... And it seemed like everybody else was having fun too!

It's all about marketing - CX Nation snow fencing at the Santa Rosa Cup

Chasing Myrah yet again...