Orchard Cross 2018

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cbusick
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Location: Shrewsbury, MA

Orchard Cross 2018

Post by cbusick »

The best part of the day was seeing Beaker get air in the pump track on his fat bike.
My race wasn't until 1:30 so I spent most of the day trying to figure out how the course/mud was going to change by my race time.
I did one pre ride lap, and then spent 30 minutes trying to get all the mud/grass out of my pulleys.

I watched the 3/4 start and thought all I had to do was take Lucca's line and it would be easy.
https://www.facebook.com/cbusick/videos ... 535466625/
(turns out you have to take his line and go REAALLLYYY fast, which I wasn't able to do since just grinding my way up the cornfield slog to get there
had me redlined.

So far this year I've been getting staged by last year's CX points, but having to race on this year's fitness so I just try to limit the damage. I was happy that things stabilized with me racing against guys numbered 329 and 330, which wasn't nearly as far away from my 321 as things had been in previous races.

So, what was the mud like by 1:30? Did it get fast and tacky? No, it turned into what people were calling peanut butter, but it was more like drywall plaster:
The attachment dp.jpeg is no longer available
So I spent 4 laps trading places with 329 and 330. Eventually 329 (Pete Buletza?) Pulled away from us and 330 (Todd Lombardo) couldn't close the gap.

Going into the last lap I punched it on the opening straight to get rid of 330, and try and catch 329, but this surge redlined me and I never recovered. I was making Turner noises for most of the lap, the kind of noises I normally only make at the end of a FTP test, when Katie yells down the stairs to make sure I'm OK> It looked like 330 imploded though, so that was something, but now there was a Scottie's guy closing on me. I tried holding him off, and thought after going over the bariers, through the bikewash runoff I had a gap. I punched it for the "sprint" a whopping 550w for 8 seconds and thought I'd made it, only to have Dan Desmarais, I guy I owned during the MTB season, nip me at the line.

Oh man that race hurt. My poor bike. It took about 150w just to turn the cranks with the bikes on the stand...

BUT: I finally stopped the cx points bleeding, so that's something I guess.
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-Chris Busick
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michaelcole
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Location: Hopkinton. Hanging out with my boys.

Re: Orchard Cross 2018

Post by michaelcole »

Mix some hay and a little cement into that drywall plaster and the description is more accurate. I couldn't get it off of my bike even at the high pressure setting on the hose and using a wire brush. I had to disassemble the bike.

That line through the mud you mentioned was ridable during my warm up at a warm-up level of effort but later on during our race at 100% "I really don't want to get off my bike" effort it was a no-go. I spent the last two laps alternating between pedaling 5 rotations and then back pedaling 2 to clear some of the plaster from my drivetrain.
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