2019 CX season - wed week 3

Week 3 was at the golf course. Thick grass is hard, and it was cold out. 27f. Andrew and Ivan didn't race because they were going to Boulder, and at the start things seemed fairly civil. I didn't have to work very hard to put myself 5th wheel behind Shaun going into the first bottleneck, where you go up a narrow driveway off the street. Robert was in the lead with Dan and Charlie behind him. The start of the lap takes you on a narrow track around a pond, then in front of the clubhouse, around a few tight corners, over the barriers, and then down the driving range. Or rather up, because it's a slight climb. Did I mention it's also thick grass? This was the most miserable part of the course, and by the time we hit the end of the range, there was a gap from Shaun to Charlie, and a gap from Charlie to Rob and Dan. I was fairly comfortable when it started opening and probably should have tried getting to Charlie before it got too big. But at the same time I'm thinking "don't be stupid and blow up on lap 1" and I was happy with where I was. Dan and Rob rode away, Shaun and I stuck together, and Charlie stayed out there, just out of reach. Looking at the times, he got about 16-17s ahead and then we closed to like 9 at the finish. Parts of the course were fast enough where there was drafting, and it was also nice to be riding with another person. We kind of figured out where each of us were better and took the lead through those sections. Without being on Shaun's wheel through the sand and over this set of logs and down a bank, I would not have even realized I should have been going faster there. Going into the last lap he's ahead of me, and there's an uphill section on cart path, then some off camber tight corners, then the finish line. My plan was to attack up the path and get in front, but there were some other racers kind of in the way that we were lapping, so I didn't get by, and there wasn't really a good way to get around in a sprint. Plus Shaun is a better sprinter than me. So 5th, but also 4 guys who finished ahead of me last week weren't there. The other 4 were, and still did. But being with Shaun and almost Charlie definitely made me feel better.

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.

2019 CX season - wed week 1

Another season of cyclocross racing is underway. Half over for me, actually. I've done 3 wed night races and went to Bozeman, and have 3 more wed night races and then Rolling Thunder.

Anyway, here's what I wrote about week 1

Little Park Creek, Inez, and the Dean Stone area

The newest happening for recreation in Missoula is the Mount Dean Stone project. A few years ago, The Nature Conservancy and Five Valleys Land Trust acquired some land in Miller Creek and on the north side of mount Dean Stone, basically in the south hills above Pattee canyon. There is still a gap between the two sides, but the project has opened up quite a bit of new land to explore and some new trail has been built on both sides, most notably the Barmeyer trail.

The other side of Dean Stone, in Miller creek, is where most of the new access has opened up. The map and overview provided by Five Valleys unfortunately doesn't give a complete picture of the roads and routes and property ownership on that side of the project, however, the inez trail, route from there to the top of deer creek, and the route down into little park creek are on trailforks, along with some other roads in the Miller creek area. Taking it a step further, I went and overlaid some land ownership squares into caltopo, which conveniently also has a public land overlay. So you can see what is TNC/5vlt, what is state, what is forest service

https://caltopo.com/m/42T5#

Lost trail not-shuttle fest

Went and did some riding by lost trail pass south of town last weekend. Lost trail is the border between id and mt on highway 93 and also right next to the continental divide. The main trail is called warm springs ridge, it starts behind the ski area at about 7800ft and goes north. It's a pretty remote, cool backcountry ride but with a shuttle almost anyone could ride it. The climbing is fairly minimal, the trail is mostly smooth, and you wind up right near the highway at the end. Every year, lost trail ski area hosts a bike fest and runs shuttles from the end of this trail and back up to the top. In addition to the ridge trail, there are a few others that drop off to the other side. The shuttle fest was last weekend though. Phil had found a route on trailforks and asked me if I wanted to go try it

https://www.trailforks.com/route/mtbm-warm-springs-route-backcountry

Philipsburg 2019

I had a pretty busy last couple months of racing - 4 of the Wed night series, the mullet classic climb, and Spirit Bear in Kalispell. Nothing really went that great for me, but I did get 4th a the Blue mountain race and due to actually going to them all was 3rd overall in the series, so that was neat. Spirit bear was a little disappointing though, with a 9th place finish. I have some words about most of all that written down elsewhere so maybe I'll copy/paste it here eventually. Anyway, this post was to talk about Philipsburg.

After all those other not really great results, I've been a little less confident in my fitness. I'm also slightly heavier than I'd like. On the plus side, June was all big weeks, racing, and hard efforts for the "Pete Mitchell Inverted Enduro," and I've been doing alright at Wed Worlds.

Bearmouth Road Race 2019 recap

Bearmouth was brought back last year, and is pretty much the only road race in the state. MSU does still put on theirs, and this year there was a UM crit the same weekend, but I didn't make it out in the open field for either. I do wish I'd gone to the road race, it looked like a great course out by Lewis and Clark caverns.

One thing I am starting to appreciate for road racing is a fully paved course with minimal traffic. At bearmouth, we basically have the roads to ourselves. The first out and back is a nice, rolling frontage road along the river and interstate from Drummond to Bearmouth, the second out and back goes over a pass to Helmville. No one has much of a reason to drive on those roads.

On to the race, there were about 25 in our open field. There's a long 1/2/3 race, and a short 4/5 race. But because of the difficulty of getting a road upgrade around here, an "open 4/5" category was added, which means anyone can race in the big race if they want. I managed to actually get myself a cat 3 upgrade last year but there are a number of really fast, experienced racers around who still are 4/5s on the road.