NBX Day 2: Finally!

NBX Day 2 marked the end of the super competitive Verge New England Championship Cyclocross Series. 14 days of races around New England of which I was able to compete (I use the term loosely) in 12 of them. This was my first full season with the elite masters and I had my ass handed to me on a weekly basis. As the season progressed and I gained more experience, strength, and fitness, the people handing my ass to me changed as I kind of moved my way up in the field. By the end of the season I would be in a position to finish in the top half of the field at the Verge races if I was "on". Of course, it seemed like Day 1 I was always "off" and then would do much better on Day 2. Day 2 at NBX was my last chance of the year to break into the elusive top 25 and get some Verge points. I did manage to get 3 points with a 23rd place finish on Day 2 in Maine but I'm not going to count that one for two reasons. First, I didn't get credit for it since my number was obscured with mud and my points ended up going to Matt Theodore's number. Funny thing is Matt didn't even show for the race that day. I split before the results were posted because I was a muddy mess, 2 hours from home and had a 3pm meeting I needed to get to with a bunch of baseball players that I was trying to get to train at my gym. So I missed the protest period. Oh well. If Matt had actually been there he probably would have done much better than 23rd so it was no real bonus for him either.. Secondly, it was the weakest Verge field of all 14 races with only 39 racers finishing the race. Hell, I got lapped by the #1 and #2 that day and still ended up in the points.. Anyway, it didn't mean as much as it would to get points in a strong field when everybody showed up, like this weekend in Warwick. So let's get to it......


Every weekend I raced twice this season I was much better on the second day. Especially my lungs. So with this being the last chance of the season to earn some points I was hoping for another solid Day 2 showing. I had a great start and hit the beach in the middle of the pack. My least favorite part of Saturday's race was the long beach run so I was really psyched about the addition of a second long beach run for Sunday. Whatever healing my shoulder separation was able to manage in the past week since crashing into a tree was completely undone by two days of running across the beach with a bike bouncing on it. That's OK though, I have plenty of time to heal up after this coming weekend.

A second beach run in a single race is never necessary, in my opinion. Photo by Banach

For the first couple laps I was feeling great and I was holding my position in the middle of the field, passing a rider here and there, until I got caught behind one of the Horst guys. Not sure if it was Aspnes or Summers, but since I don't know how to pronounce Aspnes, I'm going to say it was Summers. It definitely wasn't Domnarski because he was well ahead of us at this point. Plus, Matt is about twice as tall as me and this guy definitely was not. I was having a hell of a time getting by Summers, made worse by the fact that he appeared to be struggling as I could see the gap increasing in front of him by the second. We finally came to a clear power section that was about 50 yards long and 20 feet wide leading into a 180 that fed into another twisty section with no chance to pass. So I punched it to get around him on the outside and he throws an unexpected elbow at me. Unexpected because it's the second lap of the race, we're in the middle of a 20 foot wide power section, and I have another 20 yards before we hit the corner. I know I have a lot to learn about cross, but was this really a time when I should have expected an elbow to come at me?

Matt Domnarski leading Kruger up from the beach. Kruger is another one I received some unexpected elbows from earlier this season at NoHo.. I have so much to learn, like to expect elbows from people protecting their position even if  they're about 40 places back. Photo by Banach.

Anyway, I got by him but it knocked me off course and I came way too wide into the 180 and ended up having to cut a bunch of speed which allowed him to pass me on the inside. Shit! Now I'm behind him through another 30 seconds of twisty twistiness before the path opens up again. This time I put it in Super-Hi-Octane-Rocket (SHOR) mode and came around him with a wide enough berth that he wouldn't have been able to elbow me with Gewilli's long-ass arms. That was the last I saw of Wade and now I had some catching up to do. The next few laps are kind of a blur so let me just summarize with a sentence full of overused cyclocross cliches. I turned myself inside out, burned lots of matches, drilled it several times, and put myself in an 'epic' amount of pain. Alas, I found myself about to bridge to a group that had Matt Theodore, Dan Coady, and Mike Magur in it. Maybe another 20-30 seconds to a group with Myette and Hornberger. There was also a Corner Cycle guy that obviously wasn't named BOLD or Hines, but the fact that he was allowed to wear the same kit he had to be really good. Holy shit, I was up with some strong dudes! It took me another 1/4 lap to make contact with the group and get a slight break in their draft. We had about a lap and a half to go and there was absolutely no way I was losing contact with these guys today. By the time we came around for the bell I had passed a few guys and worked my way up to 3rd position in the group. Coady had been pulling for a while and when we came around for the bell he sat up to let somebody else pull through. The guy in second position wanted nothing to do with it so I pulled through and led the group down through the paved section around the 180s and I thought I was leading into the beach, but the Corner Cycle guy, Gray Aldridge, had different ideas (is Gray really a name or just a colorless way of saying Gary? Hmmm....). Gray came around the inside of me just before we took the corner into the beach and led our group into the sand. Since he came around me at the last possible second before hitting the corner I ended up real tight on his wheel as we hit the beach. To make matters worse he ended up kind of stopping short on his dismount. I was able to avoid running into him, just barely. Coady, on the other hand, rode his bike right into me knocking my bike out of my hands and flying off his own bike. Our bikes ended up in a tangled heap in the sand. As the other 4 ran off across the beach, Dan and I got untangled and chased. Dan said to me "I thought you guys were going to go a little further before getting off" to which I could only reply "me too".. So Gray and the other 3 opened up a good 10 second gap on us with less than a lap to go. Dan and I came off the beach and remounted. My drive train was pretty full of sand since my bike ended up on the bottom in the crash and it took a little bit before it cleared. I was crushed. I busted my ass to catch these guys and now 4 of them were gone and Coady was opening up a sizable gap too. I started to worry that I'd be stuck in no-man's land getting chased down by a group behind me. I buried myself to try to catch back on with Coady. He was up about 5 seconds and I noticed that Matt Theodore was just ahead of him. Matt must have been suffering pretty bad if he wasn't able to stay on with the other 3 as they got away from us after the crash on the beach. I managed to pull myself back up to Dan and Matt and it looked like the three of us would be coming into the line together. We hit the last few turns with Coady in front, Matt behind him and me third. On the last turn Dan went wide and seemed to situp. Was he not going to sprint for the finish? I didn't care and I wasn't going to wait to find out. Matt came around the inside of Dan with me right on his wheel. As soon as we hit the pavement I came around the inside of Matt and sprinted with everything I had left to take 25th on the day. Just ahead of Matt and Dan. Just enough to get my first Verge point in a strong field which had been a goal of mine for weeks. Finally! Too late to get me any callups since it was the last Verge race of the season, but I'll take it :)

G-Ride and GeWilli seen outside the gazebo after a couple beers to watch the pros. "C'mon Adam! You have to fucking win it!!!"

It was a great ending to a great season for me. Actually, I shouldn't say it's over yet since I have the Ice Weasels race this weekend, but that will definitely be a low key event compared to the Verge finals in Warwick this past weekend. A great event put on at a great venue. It was a party like atmosphere with everybody hanging out after the race drinking beer and eating burgers. This is another thing that makes cyclocross so much better than any other form of bike racing, the people and the atmosphere. Hell, it's what makes it better than any other sport I've ever been involved in.