11/23/03 by Phil Esempio
For me, the world of cyclocross has always attracted me in the way a fatal car wreck draws one's attention: you know it's ugly, you know it's brutal, but you still keep coming back for another look. Growing up in New England, a hotbed of 'cross racing, I've attended many races as a spectator, always enjoying the spectacle of seeing narrow-tired road bikes flying around muddy fields, along with strong road riders reduced to portaging their steeds up steep slippery run-ups. But this year, for the first time, I decided to join the carnage myself. Sporting a brand-new (but vintage 2001) GT ZRX cyclocross bike (thanks Tom D.), I ventured out last weekend to the series run by the Lake Effect team. I thought I knew what to expect...yet the level of suffering involved was in a class all it's own.
My first race was at The Fields on November 16th, in Broadview Heights, the 5th race in the Bike Authority Series run by Team Lake Effect. The twisting course lay astride a deep draw in the land, crossing it twice per each 1.1 mile lap. Each lap also had 3 forced dismounts about 20 feet long, just enough to break your rhythym and send your heart rate soaring. The weather was cold and dreary, with overcast skies and a gray tint to everything. I warmed up mostly on the paved sections of the course, mindful of the fact that I didn't want to start the race with the drivetrain already gunked up - I'd get enough of that during the race. The course wound itself in and out of the small amount of woods available, allowing your wheels to accrue just enough mud in the grassy sections so that the leaves in the relatively dry woods would stick to your wheels and muck up the works, especially around your brakes, bringing the finely tuned 9-speed drivetrain to a screeching halt when I least expected it. Survival became the order of the day. My heart raced to 190 at every dismount, until running over the barriers ceded to simply stepping over them. Finally, just when I thought I'd found a rhythym and was passing a few riders on my final lap, the mud won out: my rear derailleur committed suicide by snagging a spoke, cleanly snapping off the derailleur hangar (fortunately, a replaceable model) with half a lap to go. I sullenly picked up my eviscerated steed and marched across an open field to the start/finish line, announcing my DNF to the scorer. Yet I was hooked...my only concern at this point was, could I get another hangar ordered and installed by the end of the week?
Turns out that I could get a hangar, and did, in time to do not one, but two 'cross races the next weekend. Saturday was the Mid-Atlantic Cross Championship Series #9 in Aliquippa, PA; Sunday was race #6 in the Lake Effect series, this time in nearby Copley at the Boughton Farm. The MACC race was a major event, attracting such elite riders such as Mark Gullickson of Team Redline and Sara Uhl of the Saturn Team, and the course reflected this standing - it was very, very, tough. The entire course wound around the sports complex of Raccoon Township Park, with only one short section in the woods; the rest was across slick and muddy grass with numerous technical turns. The beautiful weather made for a great race day, but the course was so saturated that even short, relatively shallow climbs required out-of-the saddle efforts to maintain momentum. There was no relief anywhere on the course - stop pedaling, and you would stop rolling within 20 feet. In some places, even that was too much to ask - as soon as you stood up to pedal, your rear wheel would spin out and leave you stranded if you happened to pick the wrong line (as I did several times). Relief came only after the entire "B" field had lapped me and left me for dead....I could barely stand at the finish!
The second race, on Sunday, was the payoff. The Boughton Farm course was significantly drier, and a whole lot faster, than the MACC course. Utilizing a mixture of woods and the perimeter of some cabbage fields, it flowed very nicely, with some twisty woods segments and a long 75-foot dismount and run section set up by two large fallen trees. With my legs still rubbery from the day before, I started off slowly, then settled into a nice pace behind another rider. We cat-and-moused for the first 4 laps, with me gaining ground and pulling even at each of the three dismounts, only to lose it each time on the remount - I still don't have my remount techinique perfected yet - then tucking in behind him halfway to the next dismount point. Although we were way off the back of the front-runners, I felt a chance to test some strategy out had come. On the dirt road sections, although I could easily have passed, I tucked in behind him, taking the time to drink when the course had a smooth spot in it. I knew he was pushing hard to get away, but I felt I could outlast him and pass him on the last lap, which was my goal. As we started the 5th lap, we gathered up a rider from the Orrville Team just before the first dismount; the three of us crossed it together, with me falling a few feet behind as we remounted. As we turned the corner at the end of the cabbage field, there was a muddy bog just before the woods started, and as my nemesis entered it, he stumbled and lost momentum, his front wheel wobbling as he fought to hold the bike up. Although this was a full lap earlier than I'd planned on, I saw the chance and took it - flying by on his right in a slightly less muddy spot that I'd been using on every lap. Into the woods, I accelerated away as hard as I could, reaching the long 2nd dismount 30 seconds ahead of both of them, and never looked back, ultimately opening the gap up to just over 2 minutes by the end of the race, even gathering up one more rider before the end. And although I finished a lap down on the eventual winner, I felt I'd accomplished a small, but significant, personal victory - surviving, and eventually reveling in, my cyclocross baptism of mud.