Wheel Fast Racing

Jason and I raced cat 3 cross races on both Saturday and Sunday. I rolled a tubular tire on Saturday about 50 yards past the pit area on lap #1 and had to run 90% of the course back to the pits to grab my other bike. Well, I ran about 60% of the course and then snapped my unglued tubular back onto the rim. I have had an unglued tubular fail on me before, so I nursed it around the rest of the very twisty course. The leaders were almost ready to catch me by the time I grabbed my second bike. I eventually got passed by the two front runners, but I held off the third place rider for the rest of the race by 100 yards or so. I felt like I rode at a respectable pace once I switched bikes. Result wasn’t great, but the course and the rest of my race were fine. It was a race that was not part of the CCC series so the turnout was much smaller. The course, as is, couldn’t handle a huge pack anyway. Jason was 10th and I was 17th out of 19. That was a great race for Jason.

On Sunday, I finished 33rd out of 55(ish) in cat 3. Had a decent race despite a serious lack of a warm-up. I rolled the tubular on Saturday, so I set my bike up under my B plan Saturday night. There was Saturday night rain in the forecast, so I expected a muddy course on Sunday. When we got there, the course was perfectly dry. My B plan set-up included a new set of tubulars with a set of Dugast Rhinos that Brian glued and set-up for me during the week. I felt that I had the wrong tires ready when I got there, plus I noticed the front had lost about 20 psi overnight. I suspect a bad valve stem, but didn’t want to risk running out of air during the race. A soft front tire gets a little dicey and saps your confidence when you are ripping though a fast downhill while trying to carve a corner without touching your brakes.

The new tubulars are a wide rim model (Velocity Major Toms) since Easton doesn’t have a wide model yet. Switching back to narrow Eastons with dry tires required me to re-set my cantis. That took a few unplanned minutes, plus the bike/wheel pit was a little hard to find and very far from the parking lot/start-finish area. By the time I had my bike in the pits, I decided that the trainer warm-up wasn’t going to happen and I ride for less than 5 minutes (without any anaerobic efforts, which is key for a CX race start). Jason got in a 10-minute trainer warm-up and I was jealous.

Jason and I thought the course write-up suggested it was going to be lame. Also, Al Thom finished his masters race and said it was a mountain bikers course. In hindsight, this was a course that we should have pre-ridden. I think it would have helped our results a little, but there is always the fun factor of “I wonder what is around this next bend?”. On Sunday, there was an unexpected set of lawn ties around the next bend that required some bunny hopping. It wasn’t a problem, but Jason saw a guy do a nice face plant late in the race.

Anyway, the course did have some doubletrack, a singletrack climb, a grass climb, a paved climb, some really fast downhills, a huge section of sand, and a very steep and long grass run-up. The course was unexpectedly fun. Jason had an off day and finished 44th. I felt like I could have cracked the top 30 if I had been a little more aggressive on the fast sections during lap #1. I had a group of 3 riders in front of me plus a Pegasus tandem of riders behind me for 4 of the 6 laps. I was in “no-mans land”. On the last lap, I bridged up to the Tati rider from the group of 3 in front of me just in time to hit the long run-up. He is a faster runner than I am and I couldn’t reel him in. I felt like I needed just a little longer race to catch that group in front of me. Shame on me for not going out harder on lap #1.

Anyway, I am happy that my form is starting to improve, but I still have some things to work on. For example, I do not have the straight-away speed that I had last year.

Race and technology notes:

1. The new Kenda wheel bags make traveling with extra wheels much easier. They are designed for road wheels and tires, so the CX tires barely fit. It takes some finesse and you do need to remove the skewers, but the bags do fit CX wheels. I think they will be fine for 26” MTB wheels. There is no way they are going to work for 29” wheels though.
2. I put 1 ounce of Stan’s in my CX tubular earlier this year. The tires are not losing psi between races anymore, so I am a lot less geeked about tire pressure before the race. I have raced November 12-20th on the same tires without even checking psi. That is 4 races from the past 2 weekends and haven’t even needed the tire pump. I didn’t run Stan’s last year and was always spending time adjusting tire pressure before every race.
3. In anticipation of the mud and snow which is sure to come during the next 30 days, I put ¾” rugby spikes on my MTB shoes. I did not have these on during the very muddy USGP, but wish I did for that mud fest. I bought a set on Amazon for less than $10. If your shoes take toe spikes, this is the time to place an order.
4. The DeFeet Woolie Boolie socks are now offered in a below the knee version. I just received mine in the mail and they will work perfectly with knickers so that your shins are covered.
5. Jason ran the new Kenda Slant Six 35 clincher on the front this weekend. It is a true 35 and not the typical Kenda undersized CX measurement like the Kommando 35 or the Small Block 35. Jason liked the tire and I think it shows great promise.
6. HR maximums for my last 4 races have been in the 191-192 range. HR averages have been anywhere from 182-185. I haven’t seen any 200 HRs this year, so I think I am starting to show my age with respect to HR maximums!

Thanks for reading!

Chris Hammer