The Ice Weasels and I

Wasn't sure what to expect. The super intense Verge series was over last weekend, lots of guys were out in Oregon racing at natz. It was 30 degrees, windchill in the 20's, 2 inches of crusty snow and ice to race on, costumes, singlespeeds, mountain bikes, kegs of beer and "HUP"cakes. The Ice Weasels Cometh was the last race on the calendar for me and it was one of the most fun events of the year with a super party atmosphere. Nationals had nothing on the Ice Weasels. They grouped our elite master's group with the elite "open" group which meant two things, I had to race for 60 minutes instead of 45 and I was in with the only group that is faster than the group I've been racing in all season. There was an option to race in the Cat3 field, but I wouldn't have been happy with it knowing that I could have raced in the tougher of the two. I guess I could have done both races :) Maybe next year....

Considering how badly I sucked in the mud this year, this did not bode well for me..

Being a smaller race it lacked a lot of the big firepower that you would see at a Verge race, but there were still some super strong guys there. For elite masters there were Kurt Perham, Mike Rowell (who won the singlespeed race earlier in the day), Ryan Larocque, Brant Hornberger among the group. There was Al Donahue, Colin Reuter (race promoter and brain behind crossresults.com), David Wilcox, guys who place top 10 or 20 at Verge races in the pro fields. To be honest, my goal was to last as long as possible today without getting lapped. A 60 minute race with sub 5 minute laps meant I had to finish 60 minutes of racing without giving up more than 5 minutes to Al Donahue (Al was definitely the favorite to win) in order to not be lapped. But then again, with the party-like, laid back atmosphere of the day, who knew what it was going to be like. Would they take the racing serious or would they approach it with the intensely burning apathy that my pre-teen daughter seems to approach everything with these days? I don't know about anybody else, but I know for me that once the whistle blows I go as hard as possible. I'm pretty sure everybody else in the field is the same way. If that's not how you are then you don't race cyclocross. You join a bowling league or something. 

Mike Rowell over the barriers with a look of terror as Cathy screams at him "Don't bother coming home if you don't get top 3!". Mike went on to get 3rd and was allowed in the house later that evening.

Taking a pre-ride on the course before my race I was bottoming out on the rims everywhere. My tire pressure, which seemed OK earlier, must have dropped about 10psi once the tires hit the snow. They had to be running about 20psi at this point and I was thinking that I'd flat if I went 60 minutes on them, especially with the amount of times I was bottoming out every lap. I had a set of wheels in the pit with about 30psi in them and decided to do a last minute change before staging. I figured I had plenty of time, there was a bunch of us just standing around the pit area waiting to be called to stage. I started taking my wheels off and Michele comes over and says "What are you doing?". I looked around and everybody was gone, lined up at staging waiting for the whistle. Are you kidding me? So I finished up my wheel change and got over to staging with about a minute to spare. But now I was way back, (there were maybe 35 starters) and it was a short, super narrow course with very few power sections or passing sections. Not promising for my hopes of a lead-lap finish.

Colin trying to make sure the race finishes in the black by picking off $$ on the barriers.

The whistle blew and we were off. I was able to catch an inside track around the first corner and punched it getting by a bunch of guys and settling in somewhere mid pack. There were tons of tight turns on the course, mostly single track in the snow with no room to pass. This was going to be a race that definitely benefited guys who were good bike handlers on sketchy terrain, which unfortunately for me, I am not. But on the bright side, once you got in front of somebody it was going to be a bitch for them to pass you. First couple laps I was struggling with my handling. After passing a bunch of guys in the first lap I botched a couple turns in the snow getting bogged down outside of the packed track while riders went by me and then I laid it down coming around an icy 90 on a gravel road where I came down hard on my elbow and got passed by a couple more. Once I gained my composure and started handling the bike better through the turns I started gaining some ground back. Every time I would hit the power section I would give it everything I had and get by anybody within striking distance. By the 6th or 7th lap I had gotten by some guys that I've never been ahead of all year, guys like Larocque and Hornberger and some guy in a Zappa-esque moustache who I've never seen before but chased me for the last 7 laps of the race. After what seemed like about 8 laps I came around the finish line and looked at the lap card to see what we had left. We had to be close to done at this point.. 6 to go. Holy shit. Funny how long a 60 minute race feels after racing 45's all year. I was pretty much by myself at this point, I had about 20 seconds on Zappa and the guys in front of me had about 30 seconds on me. Over the last 6 laps I essentially time-trialed it. I sprinted out of every corner and crushed it on the long straightaway every lap. I was able to hold the gap on the flying stache but I was only able to close the gap on the guys in front of me to about 7 seconds. I finished 11th overall and 4th for the elite masters. Great finish to a great season.

Unaltered photographic evidence of me in front of my buddy Ryan (two bikes back) for the first time this season. He was experiencing great love for his Tufo Flexus in these conditions...

This was the type of event that makes cyclocross so cool. It was just a huge party with a bike race running through it. Every time through the barriers there were people holding out beers or HUPcakes (cupcakes made by the HUP team) for racers to grab on their way through if they chose to. And if they did, it was always to a round of huge cheers. One time through I grabbed a cupcake (in my drinking days I would have had a beer per lap). Seemed like a good idea at the time and the kids that were holding them out got so excited if one of the racers grabbed one. So I grabbed it on my way by and jammed it into my face getting at least half of it in my mouth as I took off around the corner. I wasn't thinking how difficult it might be to eat a cupcake with my HR at 175bpm, cottonmouth, and no water to wash it down with. As I started to choke on my mouthful of chocolatey goodness I blew out as much air as possible expelling most of the blockage. My mouth was so dry that a lot of the cupcake stuck to the insides of my mouth making it even more difficult to breathe for at least a half lap until I was able to clear the rest of the "cupcake of death" from my piehole. Needless to say, I didn't take any more handups from these little bastards who were obviously sent from an opposing team to try to kill me.

Accepting the HUPcake of death

I also had an amazing amount of support today from the ECV and Seaside cycle guys who were setup at the barriers and Brett, Lynn, their kids and Michele and Roni over by the runup. Tons of people that weren't mistaking me for either Aaron or Jack today. It was pretty cool. And it was also pretty surprising considering the ECV and Seaside guys at the tent were putting away about a 30 pack per field :) Just kidding, I think it was only a 30 every other field. Good times!

One of my best supporters of the day. Thanks, Brady!

Time to ski!