Sent by Karen Brems on 10/13/09

Sunday was the first race of the Surf City CX series. This is apparently one of the oldest CX series in NorCal, but the past 2 years, it was only a single race (on Halloween). Now the 5 race series is back. The race was at the Soquel High School course where I raced last year. Course is basically flat but with some steep little kickers up and down the sides of berms, some of which are loose and off camber. There was also a long section of power sucking turns and zig zags on bumpy grass. There is quite a long steep, loose run-up. Last year, some of the A men were riding up it, so they made sure that didn't happen again by putting 3 barriers at the bottom of it! There was also a loose gravel/sand pit with only one real line to it. 

The elite women's field was actually more competitive than last weekend with Kerry Barhnolt, Josie Jaques-Maynes, Sarah Kerlin and Devon Haskill all there in addition to most of the racers from last weekend. We had about 20 elite women total.

Shortly after the start, there is a short, steep, very narrow loose little hill that is always a bottle neck on the first lap. In the right gear and with good momentum, it is rideable, but if you are off just a bit, you stall out about 3 pedal strokes from the top and fall sideways in the loose sand and anyone behind you is stuck! I watched this happen in the Bs race - only the front 3-4 guys made it. I got stuck behind a faller here last year. I practiced this little hill about 6-7 times  to make sure I could ride it and to be sure what gear I wanted to use. Too high and you stall out, too low and you lose too much momentum at the bottom.

I got off the start line in 4th behind Sarah, Stella, and Kathleen Hannon. They always seem to be the fastest starters and are all good technical riders so I lulled myself into believing it was OK to be behind them for a while. Then on the turn just before the hill, Kerry comes flying by all of us and rides up the hill. I think Sarah made it behind her, but Stella stalled and put a foot down and we all had to stop. Then there was a bumpy off camber descent and Kerry almost instantly seemed to have 5-10 sec. on the rest of us. I was able to (barely) get by Kathleen on the little climb after the descent and slotted in behind Stella and Sarah. I was pretty much at my limit wondering how long it would take Devon to come by us...She did shortly thereafter. There were very few opportunities to pass though.

I made it up the first run-up without losing position, but Kerry was out of sight by now. Since Sarah and Stella are teammates on Rock Lobster, I know it is always dangerous to be behind both of them together as they sometimes gap each other off. I passed Sarah at some point and now it was just Stella leading the chase. At the start of the 2nd lap, it seemed Stella was starting to slow, or maybe I was starting to recover from the start, but I finally felt that I could go a bit faster, so I passed Stella as soon as we got back to the grass. It wasn't really an attack and I thought she might stay on my wheel, but she didn't.

Now I finally had daylight in front of me, but unfortunately it was daylight with 2 riders still ahead! It seemed that for most of the 2nd lap, Kerry had about 10 sec. on Devon and Devon had about 10 sec. on me, but none of us were gaining on anyone except on the group behind me. Finally on the 3rd lap, I caught and passed Devon on the same little pitch after the tricky climb. I actually put a gap on her, which surprised me. By the time we got to the run-up, I could not see her immediately behind me. The spectators were in a frenzy on the run-up with lots of screaming and cowbells. It seemed louder than the previous laps. I thought maybe they were cheering for me, but then I hear "Go Chicago!!" and Devon comes bounding by me! I don't know how she runs so fast! She is like 6 feet tall and all legs so maybe that helps a little. The barriers on the run-up were super tall too - so tall that with the angle of the hill and my bike on my shoulder, my rear wheel would hit the barrier as I went over. Kerry is shorter than I am, and from the photos it looked like she wasn't even shouldering her bike on that run - maybe that was why!

Anyway, now Devon is back ahead of me. I caught her pretty quickly and went by again, which surprised me. For a while I could see her chasing behind me in turns, but then I stopped seeing her. It turned out she was feeling weak from having had stomach flu all last week and eventually pulled out of the race.

Now I was in 2nd chasing Kerry who was out of sight. I made a stupid fall turning too early on an uphill off camber turn, but otherwise I just kept going as hard as I could but the few times I saw Kerry in turns, she was quite a ways ahead of me. Somebody yelled "40 sec." as I went by the finish with a lap to go and I figured that was my gap to Karry and I was racing for 2nd. It seemed I gained a little on her in the last lap and on the final results, I was only 9 sec. behind her, which was a lot closer than I thought. Maybe she did a slow victory salute :).

I made some mistakes, but Kerry dominated the race from start to finish. I found out she was 15th at CX Worlds in 2008! She has a full time job now and has maybe lost a bit of fitness, but she can definitely handle her bike!! Josie was 3rd about 1 min. behind me and Kathleen 4th and Stella 5th. Interestingly, this was the first CX race I've done where we used timing chips and also the first CX race I've done where it took 2 days to get times on the results!

Print | posted on Monday, October 19, 2009 4:50 PM