Capitol View STXC

having missed the past couple of races for a variety of reasons, I was excited to get my awesome Cannondale Scalpel back on a race course. The Short Track format at Capitol View looked like my kind of race; short, no climbs to speak of and fairly close to home.

I arrived around 9:15, plenty of time to get signed in, changed and warmed up. The first two items on the list went quickly and soon I was rolling along looking like an advertisement for Clarksville Schwinn. My pre-ride went well, with a quick loop of the course to make sure there was nothing dangerous or super-tricky followed by some quick sprints and the like to wake my legs up. I rode the starting area several times to look for a good line before we hit the singletrack as I really wanted to get a good start and not get too far behind right away.

So 24 hearty souls lined up in anticipation of 45 minutes of round-and-round excitement. Danny Peake says go and I stomp it for all I'm worth. 200 meters down the road and holy crap, I'm in front. Can't breathe, but I'm definitely in front. We enter the singletrack with me in the lead and I'm stoked, as that went much better than expected and starts are one of the things on my list to improve. About 5 minutes in and I'm still in front and feeling pretty good, wondering how many guys are on my wheel. So I decided this is a good time to wash out on a tight right-hand hairpin and crash. This brought the group behind me to a halt and it looked like pretty much everyone was right on my tail. The adrenaline, combined with the fact I was blocking the trail, allowed me to bounce right back up and take off in the lead. Still not sure that absolutely EVERYONE was on my tail I decided to crash again, this time allowing them all to pass me while I stood idly by watching. I sure got a good look at them that time, must have been about 15 guys that went by.

Then I was in chase mode, which is normal for me, but not the preferred tactic for such a short race. I made it my goal to catch as many guys as possible, so I just put my head down and tried not to crash again. It was easy to see the guys that were fairly close which gave me that little extra I needed. I ended up catching and passing a few guys including Dan Delph and Jessie from Scheller's and Charles Garner from Team Louisville. Dan and I played cat-and-mouse the rest of the race, as I would get away from him on the open sections and he'd reel me back in on the twisty stuff. Charles joined the game a little later and it was me, Charles and Dan pretty much the rest of the way in. Don Parr of Team Louisville caught and passed us about half way through the last lap and I tried to chase but he just rode away. Don rode real well despite dropping a chain early on, plus he's just coming back from major shoulder surgery last year. Charles and I manage to gap Dan just a little bit on the last little climb before the finish and we rode into the final stretch with me in the lead. The sprint was on at that point but I tried to get to the big ring at the wrong time, and blew the shift. Charles got around me right at the end to take 7th overall leaving me with 8th. This translated into 3rd in the 40-49 category which was won by Brad Wunderlich who also took the Sport overall.

The race was well run by Woodson Smith & the boys and I'd recommend it. It was a nice peek at my pre-season cyclocross fitness. Hopefully I'll do better in CX this year than I'm doing on the MTB.