S4: E4: #cxnats Course Pre/Review

Our typical nationals strategy is to partake in the B races, see how the course shapes up and then attempt to predict how the course will shape up based on weather predictions through the week. Usually the courses see continual degradation as the week progresses and the ruts get ruttier earlier in the day on each progressive day.

This year the course is going to be a mess from the start.

Early morning and still solid

The first B race this year was at 9:30am, with nearly a perfectly frozen course. The corners were sketchy, there was soft snow in places, but really the course was sort of predictable and very little mud on the bikes after this race. By the 10:30am race that was changing very, very rapidly and by the 3:00pm single speed race it had started to refreeze.

Refreeze you say? At 3pm?

Before we all got here Wisconsin was cold - like really cold. Up to three weeks in advance of us arriving the the temps struggled to get into the 20s and the tundra froze to a solid state. Whether those of us who only visit Madison on the first full week of January want to admit it, the temps really are typically very cold in January. The air temperatures aren't really the deciding factor on the surface area of the ground thawing, but rather the sunlight. Where there is ample sunlight there is thawing. As soon as that sunlight dips to an acute angle, things start to refreeze.

The kicker of this is that the low temperature for Thurday night and Friday night is in the mid-30s - but it won't matter. The ground is so frozen a lot of the areas will freeze back up as soon as the sun is gone - that snow layer is protecting the ground from thawing.

But it gets better.

Mid-day thaw - some water appearing

On top of very frigid temperatures, they got about 18" of snow. The course is plowed in its entirety from the start to the finish, leaving a 8"-18" berm, depending on location, along the course on both sides. At first it looks like Cottonelle tissue stacked and lining the course to prevent any injuries should you run astray from your intended target. While it is softer than the ground below it, it is creating a different problem - it is also thawing. In places this thaw is creating a  flow of liquid along the course, over the course, down hills, essentialy the path of least resistance. In the final 3:00pm course some of these areas were freezing and becoming slick while the race was in progress.

But, wait, there is more.

More you say? Sure, there is also rain in the forecast. Mid-30s, a solid breeze at 15-20 mph, and rain. What will rain do to course already surrounding by a large amount of frozen water? Worst case scenario planning has the Lionheart coaches heading to the local bait-n-tackle shop for some 40 lb test line, a rod and reel suitable for a Marlin, and a quick refresher on big game fishing. With a lot of rain this place will be undoubtedly wet and definitely deeper in mud.

What will it be like during my race?

Late day thaw with a stream of water

Who knows. Seriously, planning tires for the course right now is like sticking a dollar in a slot machine in Vegas - odds are not in your favor. Your tire of choice may work at the start, then be awful at the end. You also probably won't find a tire that works for the whole course. The shady parts continue to be snow/ice, the sunny parts have surface mud and very slippery, and the parts only partially in the sun are refreezing.

My perspective is that the focus may not be on the surface, but rather the solid underlayer. The much that does exist is not deep, and the ground seems colder and more frozen than last year, so odds are that it will stay frozen longer. Target the base, get a tire that makes you feel good, lower the pressure as low are your eardrums can handle and go for it.

Partial shade = half and half

Puddle of thaw beginning to refreeze

Apparently this is a sand pit

Black ice waiting to happen

Monday Travel Day #cxnats

4 Runner loaded to bear

Monday is a travel day and a day to recharge a bit after a couple hard races in Chicago. There were a lot of expectations for Chicago, but racing in the same nasty mud conditions we had the last couple OVCX races was a surprise and the kids needed some time to recharge.

So we loaded up the truck and headed to Verona. Hills that is. Gravel climbs, icy descents.

Surprisingly I got two teenage kids out of bed at 8:00 am, had breakfast, packed the car, loaded up the bikes, and out the door on our way to Madison by 11:00 am. Dad’s always have schedules and times we expect to get things done by, but rarely do dad’s plans meet up square with teenage productivity. Somehow today we did it.

Starched flags the whole way up

Once we got on the road we were glad we had plenty of time to get up to Madison. We were greeted by temps in the upper teens and a head wind all the way in the low 20’s mph range. Normally this is a touch annoying, but today we have the Thule Mountaineer rooftop box (big enough to be a coffin for a 6’ 5” guy), two bikes on the roof, and four bikes hanging off the hitch. A 20 mph head wind was like riding a TT bike with an Zipp 808 front wheel and a disk rear wheel and being adamant that you had to stay in the aero bars – you know you are going to get bounced, you just never know when and spend a lot of energy steering into the cross.

We drove a leisurely pace, thanking the Illinois department of highways along the way for raising the tolls on January 1^st. The tolls on I-90 north of Chicago to Wisconsin now takes $3 a shot. Adding up the tolls and their increased price from south of Chicago all the way to the Wisconsin border it will now cost $20 just to pass through Chicago. My first thought was “DAMN!”, but then I started thinking…if we want people to think about driving every place at any time this is the way to do it. If it was going to cost me a Jackson a day to drive to work just in tolls, you can bet I would be thinking about alternatives to driving my car.

Verona-Still Work To Do

We drove into Verona and headed to Badger Prairie County Park and immediately noticed one thing: ice. Ice on the driveway into the park, ice on the course, ice in a lot of places. Immediately we talked about Bend in 2010 and the ice time trial we had to ride there. When comparing conditions side by side there was no comparison. The ice at Bend was way, WAY worse than anything we just saw in Verona. The ice in Bend was so thick that there were ruts in the ice, and it really never went away. The ice in Verona will go away with a little salt and some reasonable temperatures.  (Jan 2nd Course Preview Video courtesy You Tube/Ted C Burns/CX Magazine.)

After hitting up a Chipotle in Middleton, WI (the McDonald’s of cross racers) we hit up our hotel and started to get settled. And by settled I mean the kids went played in the pool while I washed six bikes and 3 additional wheelsets in the shower. When we finished in Chicago the mud was sticking to the bikes and on top of that freezing to the bikes. As a result of the freezing temps we didn’t want to wash them outside in Chicago – last thing I needed was water getting in sealed bearings, freezing, expanding and having to run to bikes shops collecting bearing replacements. So I channeled my inner Dusty Labar and soiled the shower.

Now the bikes are clean, the kids are refreshed, and we have all ridden on trainers on the hotel to shake out the legs after yesterdays beating in Chicago. Tomorrow we start our quest to learn, prepare and compete in Nationals – look for insights on the course and tires in tomorrow edition. We will try to get reviews of the current conditions utilizing the following tires:

Tubular:

- Vittoria XG (almost exactly same as Challenge Grifo)

- Vittoria XM

- Vittoria XN

- Challenge Limus

- Clement PDX

Clincher:

- Clement PDX

- Clement LAS

I have also included a few fun photos below. Teenagers are fun, interesting, and perplexing to travel with – they are so easily distracted by normal every day items.

Occupado! Sorry kids, can't use the toilet right now

Pretty nice hotel pool, even has life guards

Hotel with bunk beds? There were fights over the top bunk

I found them in the closet playing with the hotel safe.
Seriously, I did not stage this.

Cyclocross Nationals 2010: B Races-aka Course Preview

Organizers chop ice off the start grid at 2010 US CX Nationals

(The following was written by Corey Green, our reporter for 2010 CX Nationals in Bend.  After reading this the only advice I have to those racing is to wrap yourself in Saran wrap, wear your water-wings and affix an ice axe to your handlebars.  Since this was written our other reporter Gregg Shanefelt of Zephyr Wheel Sports finished 9th in the Men's Open Non Championship race.  Results link click here.  Enjoy!)


Today was B race day, which is more commonly know as "preview the course at race speeds with other crazy people day". The B races are the only races at CX Nats that a Cat 4 CX racer can enter, so the field has a wide range of skills. Today I saw guys on mountain bikes and guys wearing pants!?!  So, you can't enter this race too serious or you will be at risk of actually thinking you accomplished something by beating the guy out there in his jeans and hiking boots just looking for a fun ride.


The race is really good for taking laps at race speed and testing multiple lines through the elements. Where can I pass? Where will the dollar bills hand ups be? How close are the port-o-johns to the finish line? Can I ride this run up, or should I remember that superman has a cape but I do not? By taking this approach you can learn a lot about this course and help your race later in the week.



Cyclocross Magazine's National Championship Course Preview - 12/8/10 4pm from cyclocross magazine on Vimeo.


CX Magazine posted this preview, which was taken today about mid-afternoon after the four B races had finished their circuit of the course. Prepare yourselves as what you see might frighten you - and I will say that the earlier in the day you raced, the harder it was to ride. At 8am during previews there was still 6+" of snow on about 50-60% of the course.


The start is one of the best starts anywhere (photo above of organizers chopping ice.) Long, smooth, beautiful blacktop. The kind of blacktop that makes a roadie wet his pants a little bit when he is riding over.  Oop!  That roadie would not be excited about the 180 in snow at the end of the start though. The start was pretty controlled today, but the outside line is a horrible line on this start. Of course a 180 degree turn in much at 20+ mph isn't exactly a joyride either.

After the 180 comes a long segment of straight. When you look at this course on a map you might think to yourself "there is where I will pass people. I have a lot of straight line power, I am superman!" But then again, you don't have a cape and this section isn't as easy as the map suggests. The ground here is soft and squishy. As you might see from the cameraman he is being fussy about picking his lines through this section. This is most likely because he wants to save his rims. Below the appearance of plain mud and ground is rock - ugly rock with sharp edges - a pumice type rock. Hit one of these wrong and it will pierce the most protected tire.


There is then a sweeping right turn (complete with all mud) that leads into a lake. Well, it wasn't a full on lake when we raced in the morning, but from the looks of the video we may need to put boat oars in the kid's back pockets. Coaches will also be required to train in CPR and complete a life guard test to supervise this section of the course. When we rode this at noon today it was about 8" deep and frigid (yes, snow runoff). That water would spray up on your legs en masse and instantly freeze your feet. The best part? You are less than 2 minutes unto your race.


After freezing your feet into popsicles you turn a few relatively easy sweeping corners and head into a nice long straightaway. This straight is one of the few times you are not fighting your bike to stay under you and gives a chance to go fast! At the end of that long straight section you hit a cambered, BMX style turn that, if dry, would be super fun to rail and propel your momentum back the other way. Only problem is the snow and mud make it nearly unrideable. Even the cameraman of this video got into it and gave up. As you are trying to ride it your rear wheel is falling away from and you either power-drift it all the away, or you hit a stake, stop your momentum, and run through the corner.


After butchering that corner you head back along a long straight and through some nice sweeping turns. These are entirely passable and in some cases you can ride them like a real cyclocross racer. Another long straight and you are back to the fun sections, or at least that is the way they explained it to me. Now we get to do the drop-in/run-up combos. Remember back in Junior High School when you were play football and your coach made you run in place, drop to the ground and get right back up? and you just kept doing them? Yeah, that it what these felt like.


The first drop in is pretty simple and easy. Smooth, good ground, no real need for being in a certain line or speed. But, the run up following is killer. I tried to ride it one lap just to see if I could do it and failed miserably (see pic). (Editor note: you look like you need an ice axe)  The run up is quite steep and with ice and snow you can't get the speed necessary. After scaling Mt. Bendverest, you got to remount in another lake at the top - if your feet had warmed any after lake #1, they weren't warm anymore.


After surfing through the lake over a slow downhill you got to another run up which is again, unrideable. I tried and failed. You sense the correct pattern here. The problem with this run up is it never learned the meaning of "smooth". This run up may have been part of the WW2 attack on Normandy with the bomb craters that line it on each side as you try to scale it. Another quick remount and you are on to the next dropin/runup.


The next dropin has a major case of schizo. One line is smooth and straight and makes you feel all warm inside when you get to the bottom. The other line could have also been involved in the Attack on Normandy with bomb craters in all the wrong places. I took this line once, and only once, and had a near "oh shit" moment, riding a front wheel wheelie stand for a couple seconds until the body weight could be placed back over the bike. The runup partner here is an easy ride and can be cleared pretty quickly if not trying to pursue it with 10 of your new-found friends.


Once you have cleared the dropin/runup version of Candyland you have a couple longer straight sections to gain some speed and feel good about yourself - and lake #3. Once you go through lake #3 your feet won't ever be warm again until after your race and you have been standing in the shower living through that painful feeling of regaining warmth.

The Best CX Nationals Bike Trailer EVER

Crossing over the street you hit some really nice grass. Deschutes Brewery has very nicely groomed grass on their side of the course. It is well kept and thick and feels like velcro on your tires - the kind of sticky that makes you feel all warm and cozy inside. This is a section very reminiscent of the cross back in Ohio.


At the end of the grass is a great runup. It is a runup that is deceptive and fair. A lot of times you can ride it and really make time up it. If you get off the right line or can't get speed with people around you, it really becomes a run up and this segment becomes very hard to do fast. You see the remount at the top is off camber. Last year when the ground was frozen your rear tire would be sliding down the course while you were trying to remount. If you did a flying remount your weight would shove the tire further down the hill.


Once you ride you white knuckle the descent back to ground level and hit a freshly paved road section for the final stretch before the start finish. This final stretch includes two difficult elements - the flyover and the steps.

Inside the Best CX Nationals Bike Trailer EVER

The flyover (pictured above) really isn't hard and over the week it will (should) get easier. However, today there was six inches of snow in this section, making it difficult to carry enough speed to get over the flyover with any efficiency. The last section of pine board seemed impossibly difficult.


Descend the flyover and head through a few more lakes and onto the final challenge of the course - the steps. These steps are just wrong. They look great and make for a great spectacle racing, but their size makes them impossible to get the right step on. They are too short to take one at a time with any speed, and just a touch too small to take two at a time without making your heart rate spike. You do them like Tiny Tim one time and like crazed lunatics on the stair master the next time. Either way your heart is through the roof before the finish line, making a sprint to the finish very hard.


That is the course that your National Champions will be determined on this week. The conditions combined with the course will make for difficult racing and the winner will certainly earn their prize. Now that you have the settings I will be on the lookout for more oddballs and oddities this week.

Coincidence? OVCX Gun Club CX Course Looks Like Gun

I'm no expert on firearms, but this weekend's OVCX Gun Club Course looks remarkably close to a gun, or at least an 80 ounce Super Soaker.  Coincidence Mr. Gatch?  We think not!  Whether that's a 9mm or a sniper's rifle is better left in the hands of the experts.  Cool thing is that there really is a real shotgun start this Sunday in Cincinnati and if your name has something to do with guns, you can get free entry like Gunnar Shogren did last year.  For details & registration click here.


We pre-rode the course last night.  For those that thought the sand was easy on Wednesday, rumor is the rotor tiller will be brought out to mix it up pro-volleyball deep prior to Sunday.  It's fairly similar to last year's, 'cept for a shorter slog across the trap shooting hill side and the addition of a wicked tripple chokepoint combining a tight entry to a wooden bridge, a "you choose it" double line through a creek, followed by a just barely rideable run up.


Last night I saw riders clean both lines through the creek and even the run-up.  Problem is, I didn't see anyone do it in traffic.  No doubt, where and when you decide to run and which line to take through the creek will prove pivotal in the race.  Riders seemed to think, the first few lucky souls through on lap one may be able to clean it to the clangs of cowbells.  Those caught in traffic will have a tough decision between trying to ride with the chance of getting shelled by someone bobbling in front of you or running it all from as early as the exit of the bridge.


Bang!