Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

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cbusick
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Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by cbusick »

Dreading the amount of bike washing I was going to do in Patrick's race I decided to forgo a pre-ride lap so I wouldn't have to wash my bike twice.

GO!

And I half heartedly clipped in and started sprinting on the only non-muddy road I'd see for the whole race. Lizzy went by on my left, oh well. We hit the track and things were still ok, then we turned left into the mud hole before pit 1. Naturally there was a pile up. I had to "run" for a bit, sloshing through shin deep muddy water with, what's that? Oh yeah, chunks of ice. Like a mudslide, I guess literally.

Past Pit one, I'm riding again, then down the little drop dodging the crashed out riders and up the false flat that for some strange reason, although covered in a couple inches of thin chocolate pudding, is actually ridable. Lizzy is running it on the right and I slide right by her to the yellow stake that marks the right hand uphill turn into unridability, shoulder the bike and bump and fight my way up as my feet sink and slide.

Into the woods, another place where the tires can find frozen ground under the pudding and I'm riding, avoiding the nastiest of the roots and pick off a couple guys. Then off the bike again for a nasty run up to an off camber left that's downhill and ridable, but tricky, and every once in a while the rear end goes sideways for no good reason. (Maybe ice beneath?)

Then the "drop" sort of like the drop from Nationals in Hartford. With a little ditch at the bottom to make it interesting. I'm still riding, but get crashed into the tape by a dude who suddenly goes sideways.

Now into the pit 2 mud-hole. This one is amazing. It's post holes 3/4 of the way up to my knee. Thin, watery mud to the right, or slushy grass in the middle. This is the point where I decide the race is ridiculous. WTF. Later I watched Curtis actually ride 1/2 way through this mud-hole before having to dismount. He didn't try that again though.

At the end of this mud-hole I try to remount, only I forgot that i'm effectively at least 4 inches shorter because of the hole I'm standing in and don't manage to clear the seat. (that left a mark). I manage to get back on and down through a little gully, slip slide and claw my way up the other side onto the only piece of grass on the course that hadn't been turned to slurry.

After that there's a couple running climbs, followed by off camber or tri-poding descents into huge puddles, followed by more running climbs. Lizzy passes me again somewhere in there, but I pass her back at the "barriers" which they'd removed before my race because the hole after them was getting too deep. Then a left turn onto the sweet gravel road through the start/finish and a quick glance at the lap card..

4. FOUR! FOUR more laps?!!!! are you kidding me!?!? ugggghh!

Lap 2 is pretty much the same.

On lap 3 I notice my front brake lever goes all the way to the bar without resistance as I hit the drop. Hmm, that's interesting. I fishtail down and carry on.

Katie yells some words of encouragement as I'm about to remount by the chainlink. I somehow manage to kick my leg through a stake, snapping it of 1/2 way (the stake) and then missing the pedal and somehow winding up with my foot on top of the wrong end of the crank.

Lap 4, I notice I don't really have a rear brake either. But what the hell, I'm sure the mud will slow me down on the drop if I just let it ride. Ohhhh crap, that's fast!!! But I manage to tripod and then get my weight back before the gully.

Lap 5 I notice the ice chunks in the slurry are actually flowing along with the race in mini-rapids. I try telling a Down-East guy how much I hate running, but he isn't amused. And then I fight my way to the finish line and it's over.

Wow, that was the nastiest cx race I've ever done.
5 laps, 56 Minutes. 27 out of 47, only 30 finished on the lead lap.
Patrick only manages 38 minutes and 4 laps in the pro race before him and nearly everyone else is 80%'d. Only 8 pros finish on the lead lap.

Curtis White is a machine.
Katie had a lot of fun taking pictures.

What? That was only 6.3 Miles?
-Chris Busick
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tsavage
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by tsavage »

You can look forward to the fact that Lizzy can race in the Elite Women next year! Her time today would have put her 11th in the Elite race ahead of LVG. Oh, and she jammed her chain on lap 1 and ran a 1/2 lap to the pit, so ?????? I've already started planning my trip to Switzerland for the 2020 Worlds when she can race the inaugural Junior Women 17/18 race!
"When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race." - H.G. Wells
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cbusick
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by cbusick »

I look forward to watching her tear up the elite's. She's amazing to watch.

She beat me last week at noho, but my shifter was jammed in the first lap and I had to single speed so I guess we are even.
-Chris Busick
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jraguin
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by jraguin »

You are tough people to do these races. I can't imagine. One of the many reasons I don't do CX (along with burnout and poor bike handling skills).
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peterkuhn
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by peterkuhn »

Chris,

Dang.

- Peter
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by chrismitchell »

^What he said.
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cbusick
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by cbusick »

DAY 2

I went to sleep Saturday night 100% convinced that I was NOT going to race on Sunday. I had a long list of reasons:
I wasn’t sure I could get my bike and Patrick’s bikes going in time
My bike was a mess, no working brakes, crank isn’t turning, something’s really strange going on in the headset
My left hip was hurting again
My right ankle was killing me
The rest of me felt like I’d been beat by a muddy stick

But mostly I just didn’t want to do it again. So I went to sleep 100% convinced i wasn’t going to race, but also a little worried. I didn’t fully trust that Sunday Chris would stick to the plan Saturday Chris had made.

Sunday morning came and I started calling around to bike shops to find some brake pads. No luck with the one that opened at 9:30. The next was 10:30. The Cyclery by Effy.

Chris: Do you sram force hydro brake pads?
Effy: Yes we do
Chris: Are they metalic or organic? I’m worried orgainics aren’t going to last more than a couple laps in these conditions.
Effy: Ahh sorry, I only have organic.
Chris: Bummer, thanks anyway.

So now I’m waiting for the 11:00 am bike shops to open. In the meantime Katie kept saying “just ask, someone will have some at the race”.

In my opinion this was a bad idea because:
It showed how unprepared I was, not having spare pads. (I’d alreay used all my spares up this season and hadn’t gotten around to ordering more)
Nobody would have spares, since my guess is that everyone ruined theirs already

But as we sat around waiting for 11AM she kept pressuring me, so FINE, ask away.

She does some social media thing with her phone. A couple seconds later “see, I'm getting replies already! Ohh, that's not helpful… hmm. They are laughing at me?!!? There's some sort of brake pad barter system going on at the venue. They say local bike shops are useless”

Ugh, well, organic is better than nothing. I call Effy back.

“How many sets do you have?”
“Just this one, how many do you need?”
“Ideally six pairs”
“Oh, let me check...I can get you three if I take some OEM pads off of a new bike.”
“That's great we'll be there in 15”

Effy was great actually gave us a good deal.

Back to the venue. I started fixing Patrick's brakes while he swapped toe spikes on his shoes.

We got him set then I sat and watched my race go by while I drank a beer and ate some insanely good waffles from the food truck while DNS'n my race without a shred of regret. They looked miserable.

In the pit for Patrick's race we were swapping bikes every lap. The mud in the pit was ankle deep, nowhere to put anything down so the wrenches just carried the clean bikes and handed them to racers for exchange.

Some teams had bikes without pads in the pit, figuring to to they'd cannibalize some other bike that failed.

I actually heard Jesse yelling, the rear brakes are frozen, don't use them while handing a bike to Kerry Werner.

It was bad.
-Chris Busick
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by Briana »

So happy I didn't decide to make this year my first year at Supercross. Maybe next year. If I remember correctly, last year was a muddy mess too.
Shedd Park was muddy but ridable :-)
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cbusick
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by cbusick »

Shedd park looked like fun from the pictures as long as you avoid dumpster fires
-Chris Busick
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Re: Supercross Day 1. I doubt there will be a day 2 for me

Post by oscarp »

It almost seems like this muddy season its paying off for the people who put in running training time.
Oscar
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