2019 CX season - wed week 2

Last week, a couple of the regular fast guys weren't there, and I generally felt pretty good the whole race. This week had better turnout and I wasn't really at 100% going into it. Same gravel section off the start, but last weekend's rain packed it down pretty well and the large dumpster was gone, so much more manageable in the group at high speed. Turn two was a hairpin on loose gravel though. Despite feeling like I had a pretty good start, there were a lot of guys, and a lot of fast guys, and I was probably 8-9th wheel or so once we got through the tricky bits. But, no gaps for about the first half of the first lap. But then there were, and I couldn't stick with Toby through the technical bits when he passed a couple guys who were falling off, and the front of the race was gone. I got passed by a couple guys, passed a couple guys, and had some fun back and forth throughout most of the race and then with like 3 to go was by myself again. This time in 9th place though. And the leaders of 40+ caught and passed me on the last lap but sticking on their wheels to the finish line was actually pretty easy. I tried to ride the run up about half the time today, it wasn't faster because you had to take a longer route vs running up, but there was a crowd up there. I made it twice out of I think 4 attempts, on one of the missed ones I took a whisky shot.



I wasn't really expecting a great finish. Last week I felt good during the race, pretty terrible thursday, but still went to the group mtb ride, which was straight up a mountain. That went bad and felt bad and I should have just done like an hour of casual recovery instead. Carried that into going on a moderately hard garbage ride friday, built trail saturday, went for a fucking run for some reason sunday, then on a 3 hour road ride monday. Tuesday I tried to do an openers ride up my usual trail and was pretty off pace, so I knew what was coming. Strava's estimated power is lower on essentially the same course and so is my average speed.

Tire pressures were about the same, maybe a touch lower. I set my pressures at home and then after pre-ride they'd dropped to 24/26 due to the temperature change, which was definitely too low out there. I started on the low side of 26/29 (gauge only reads full psi increments and I get a couple of pushes of the bleed button between them), and it got colder as the race went on, and I hit the rims a lot, and harder than I'd like a couple of times. Should have checked them again after the race to see where they ended up. The rain packed things down so everything was either fairly grippy and fast, or grass, or just fucking loose rocks and chewed up dirt. So the pressure I think needs to stay up there for the rocks and to keep the tire supported on the grippy corners.

Best parts were definitely the cheer squad and then getting good burgers with friends after. Not so much the racing.

Pictures

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