Starcrossed CX & Rad Racing GP

[Roland]

One the weekend, Katie & I and about 10 overs from Victoria headed down to Starcrossed CX in Seattle, probably the biggest cyclocross race in the pacific northwest. This race is popular, registration opened at the start of August and some categories sold out within a day. Rad Racing GP the following day is also huge, bigger than any CX race in Vancouver.

Just to give you an idea of how big, here is the Women's Cat 3/4 start, 70 registered:

Katie is in there somewhere.

Here is the men's Cat 4 start, field limited to 80 riders:

I'm in there somewhere to the back

Team Canada arrived early and claimed the gazebo, which was nice because it rained a lot


The course is around the grass and parking lots near the Marymoore velodrome. The greatest change in elevation is the height of the banking of the velodrome. My GPS reported 20 meters climbing for the entire race.

The race started with a fast sprint across a parking lot, a sharp right into the grass around the velodrome, lots of twists and turns, 4 logs to jump, more twists and turns, a half lap of the velodrome and then into the infield with barriers and then back out of the velodrome for more twisting and turning until to complete 2.8 km loop. Anybody who has raced on the Island would consider this course flat and easy.

Katie raced first, but I didn't get to see much of her race as I was warming up, I'll let her report on it.

I raced 2nd race of the day. It was still dry and the course was still in good condition. Callup was random, and I was probably in the 7th or 8th row. I took the far right side, hoping to go wide on the start and make up as many positions as I could. It didn't work as I ended up getting pinched into the barrier and had to drop back then move into the middle. Going into the first corner I was near the back of the pack, not where you want to be in a 30 minute cyclocross race.

For the next 35 minutes I pushed myself harder than I've ever pushed myself before on a bicycle. I averaged a heart rate of 181 with a max of 191. (The maximum I've ever seen myself do is 193, my previous best average is 174 for 26 minutes at the Sidney TT last year)

I charged through the pack quickly, passing every opportunity I could find, diving inside corners, passing wide on the outside and then hammering down the straights until I could dive inside another corner.

I was surprised by the lack of technical skill of the other rides, and the difference in speed I could take through the corners. By the last lap, it was getting harder to pass people as I was now racing the faster Cat 4s, but I wanted to pick off one or two more before the end. I managed to get a good line coming out of the last corner and out kicked to pass one more on the finishing straight. I placed 20th of 80, I must have passed close to 50 people during the race. A better start position would have been nice. But that's cross.

I was supposed to run pit crew for Normon Thiabault for the Masters 1/2 race but got kicked out of the pits for drinking beer. Who knew that wasn't allowed? I managed to get back in before the race start, so everything was ok. My pit services weren't need anyway.

Sunday's Rad Racing GP was a smaller race, but Cat 4 men still had 70. Only the first two rows got callup, it was a rush for the rest of the spots. I ducked a ribbon and got a 3rd row outside callup. Going wide worked this time, as the start was wider and I moved into top 5 going into the first corner. It didn't last as I got my front wheel taken out by a rider moving across the course and I went down hard.

Shortly after that my freehub stopped engaging properly, so I stopped at the pits for a new wheel. By this time the Cat 4 men had all passed me and many of the Masters 4 Men, so started a minute back. My head just wasn't in it, I pushed hard, but not crazy hard like the day before. It was much wetter than the day before as well, making it much harder to pass in the corners. I did however manager to push it hard enough in the corners to drive clumps of grass under the bead of my front tire. I'm not sure how I finished, I never did see my result get posted before we took off for the ferry.

Photos:
Starcrossed: http://photos.rabien.com/Cyclocross/201 ... 3806_7W5Nw
Rad Racing: http://photos.rabien.com/Cyclocross/201 ... 8216_fJR3V

[Katie]

What an awesome weekend of racing! Starcrossed is an incredible event - over 600 racers in 10 categories and 7 start times, it's great racing at every level.

I raced in Women Cat 3/4 (70 racers) that started 15 seconds after the Women Masters 35+ category. There were 109 women on the 2.8km course for 4 laps.

The start was a bit chaotic. I was in pretty much dead center of the start grid, and the girl in front of me couldn't clip into her pedal when the starting sprint began. She veered side to side as she stared at her foot trying to clip in at while moving at about half the speed of the rest of the pack... I couldn't find a safe way around so I lost a bunch of places before we even got to the grass.

For the first two laps I was in the main "pack" passing lots of people in the technical parts, then getting passed on straightaways. I discovered pretty quickly that I could close even a 40ft gap in 2 corners, because many of the racers had good speed but were not good at cornering, and if you could carry speed through corners and sprint out of them, you could make up a lot of ground. I had to rely on this for the 3rd & 4th lap when I slowly lost contact with the main pack and ended up playing leap frog with the other stragglers.

I finished 61st overall, but feel really good about the race. I raced hard, stuck to my strategy, and had a blast passing throughout the race. Getting a chance to watch the Pro races was pretty cool. They make it all look so easy. Barry Wicks can bound over the barriers with only one step between them. It almost looks like a form of muddy dance.

Rad Racing GP on Sunday morning was another great race. It was even flatter than Starcrossed! Unfortunately, it had 2 LONG beach sections that required running. Running is not my thing.

We got to the park at 7:45 for my 9am race, planning for me to jump out of the car, register, and hop on the bike for a reasonably long warmup. Instead, I stood in the registration line for 35 mins, then spent 10mins pinning the unwieldy numbers on my jersey and only got 1 slow lap of the course in as warmup before they called us to staging. Oh well, I was pretty sure I was still warm from yesterday's race. It would all be fine.

My start had 4 or 5 categories in it (about 60 racers), each category starting 1min apart, with my category (Women Cat4) starting last. I was rather worried that with a 4 min headstart on a 3km loop, the leader of the Cat3 women might catch me and lap me before the finish, but that didn't happen It was another good battle with lots of passing - mostly I'd get passed while "running" on the beach, then I would reel some of them back in on the bike. Again I found I could make up a lot of ground by cornering effectively, and ended up 19th out of 27.

Some observations that may be unique to Women's cyclocross racing:
1. most people on the start line looked as skeptical and uneasy as I felt.
2. there are a lot of "sorry"s and "thank you"s that happen during a race.
3. there is a lot of cheering for fellow competitors during the race, and not just cheering for your teammate -- one woman cheered "ya ya ya! go get 'em!" as I passed her.
4. it is a lot of fun racing people in your proper category. I wish we had better turnout locally so that more women could enjoy racing.

The beach runs at Rad Racing GP (you can see the first beach section in the background)


Most of the start line for one of the mens races: