subway cx

Last race of the season was a good one. New course, 10min from home, and surprisingly good turnout - I thought most people would pack it in after Provincials.

I started the day by freezing my ass off, volunteering at registration. I will never give someone slow at running registration a hard time - it was so hard to keep everything straight and have it run smoothly! The craziness was compounded by the lack of safety pins, and the number of riders who hadn't raced cross at all this year. I thought it would be easy-breezy, but in a matter of minutes, the table looked like a hurricane had hit it! I then managed to spill coffee on my jersey while pinning my numbers.

I wasn't worried about pre-riding the course, since I'd been privy to a sneak peek a few weeks earlier. Pretty much unchanged, except for one field that I had expected to be a few back-and-forth straightaways, and instead was a dizzying maze of tape, just over 1km long. Every time you thought you were almost done, you turned left and headed back in!

Just prior to the start, I was having trouble shifting, so I asked Keith to have a look. He and Maki discovered the real problem - my bottom bracket was coming loose, and was about 1cm out on the drive side! Shit! Luckily, Maki is a whiz with the multi-tool, and got me rolling with about a minute to spare. I jumped onto the line, pulled off my spare clothes, and we were off!

I was sitting second wheel through the maze, and feeling pretty good through the back section, when I downshifted to go up a gravel hill, and got some serious chain suck. I had to get off the bike to fix it, and even though it only took a few seconds, it put me back into 8th overall, and gave the lead women a gap that I was never able to close. Guess those technical twists and turns still need some practice!

I didn't waste any time getting myself back as close to the front as possible, but ended up riding in no-mans land in 3rd for much of the race. It was windy, so riding alone really sucked. To top it off, I was getting a whiff of coffee depending on the wind direction, from my earlier mis-hap in number pinning. No further mechanicals, and a podium finish, were a nice way to finish off the season.