Submitted by Karen Brems on 12/12/09

This week the town of Bend, OR hosted their 2nd national championships of the year with Cyclocross nationals for all ages: juniors, masters and elites. Last time I was in Bend in July, it was 105 degrees, which beat the heat record of many years. This week, temps hit minus 20 overnight, which was another record! We arrived Wed. late afternoon in time for a couple laps of the course before dark. It was about 15 degrees and most of the course was covered in snow. I now had 2 days to learn how to ride in snow! There were some parts that the organizers had blown clear that were grass. Both the snow and the grass provided at least a minimal amount of traction, but the worst parts were a couple of bare dirt sections which were frozen solid and slick as ice. I took my first crash of the week on one of these. I am thinking how much better I like CA CX...

I was told that the best I could hope for was that the weather stayed cold and the snow stayed on the course. If the course thaws and hundreds of riders make tracks and then it freezes again, you get the dreaded "frozen ruts" to catch your wheel in every turn. After pre-riding again on Thurs with about 15 less psi in my tires, I decided that indeed, snow was my friend! I crashed again on the same hip on the same dirt spot, but managed most of the rest of the course, albeit at a snails pace. Riding snow is kind of like riding sand: stay loose and do all your braking BEFORE the turn! The course was only open for 1 hour each day at noon for pre-riding, so with over 1600 racers registered for the championships, one can imagine what that hour was like...Anything technical had a long line of riders stopped before it waiting for the riders in front to pick themselves up. If you tried to wait for a clear line to try to ride, people behind you just went by and clogged it up again. The 2 most difficult sections were a short, dirt off camber uphill out of a turn that was frozen solid and a long, fairly steep dirt run up that would have been rideable had it not been so slick. I was never able to ride these, but I never really had a chance to try them with a clear line either. A few people did ride the run-up, but most who tried stalled out and slid back half way up, losing more time. Even running it was very slippery. The only other off the bike sections were a set of double barriers in the grass and a set of 23 steps to run up. They put some kind of sand paper on the steps themselves, but the dismount area in the grass before it was super slick, so if you dismounted with a little too much speed, you just went skidding straight into the stairs (I did this on my warm-up lap). Passing was very difficult as it required going out into the deeper, churned up snow on the straightaways (which there were few of) or crossing the ruts in the turns.

The amazing thing is the course could completely change in just half an hour if the sun came out and warmed the ground just a little. It seemed like the best traction was during the 2-3pm races, when all the off camber dirt was easily rideable. The morning ground was frozen solid and the later afternoon races started icing up again. My race was at 1pm on Friday, which was probably the 2nd best time. We drove over around 10:30am to try to get a lap in during a half hour gap in the morning races (where organizers were telling everyone the course was closed, but lots of people were riding anyway!). I would have to say, this was the worst condition the course I had been in yet. The dreaded frozen ruts were in every turn and the dirt off camber was unrideable again. At noon, the course opened up again and I took another lap before my trainer warm-up. Now even the grass was super slick and people were sliding out on that. I crashed twice in one lap on grass sections. In retrospect, I probably would have been better off just not riding the course at all before my race as it changed a lot before (and during!) my race and my pre-ride took away the last little bit of confidence I had about actually being able to ride it.

I raced in the 45-49 division, and we were lined up behind the 40-44 group, which had about 50 riders. I knew this would be trouble and I was right...There were about 40 women in my race and another 40 or so in the older age groups lined up behind me. We had well over 100 women on course at the same time in 6 different age divisions. Having never raced masters nationals before, the only people I knew in my race were Bev Chaney and Trina Baumsteiger from NorCal. Kris Walker, from Pocatello, ID had won last year, so I made a mental note of what she looked like as she was called up. The 40-44 group started and we rolled up to the line, expecting at least a 30 sec. gap, but the whistle blew immediately! There were less than 10 sec. between groups.

I sprinted up the pavement and entered the first turn onto the dirt in 3rd behind Bev and Kris. Not 10 meters onto the dirt, we all had to come to a complete stop and there was a wall of riders from the younger age group tape to tape, standing in the turn waiting to get through the bottleneck! It was complete chaos. As I pushed my way through the masses, I hooked bars with someone from the 40-44 group and had to stop again and untangle myself. Meanwhile Bev, Kris and one other rider in my group (which I later found out was Catherine Walberg, '06 and '07 champ in this division) slipped through ahead of me. I finally got back on my bike and started the endless process of getting around riders one by one on the course. It was still slick and riders were crashing right and left in front of me. I managed to stay upright and inch my way around the turns and hug the inside to pass as many people as possible. I got to the barriers and passed a couple of people going over them, but as I pushed off to remount, my foot slipped on the grass and I ended up with my leg over the rear wheel instead on the saddle! I stopped momentarily to catch my balance and remount again when someone plowed into me from behind and knocked me to the ground and fell right on top of me so I could not get up!  I finally got up and started the passing process again.

Somewhere in the middle of the 2nd lap, I was finally able to get some breathing room and start actually racing. I heard Karl say I was in 4th, 20 sec. down on Bev who was leading. The next couple of laps were basically a blur of passing people and not really knowing where I was in the race. Somewhere I must have passed Catherine and moved up to 3rd. With about 1 1/2 laps to go, I finally see Bev up ahead and I am closing in on her. I don't see Kris, so I figure she must be somewhere ahead of Bev. With about half a lap to go, I hear someone behind me trying to pass me, which is a first. I figure it must be someone from my division, so I hug the inside on every turn and try to accelerate every straightaway. I pass Bev as she bobbles a turn and we hit a short straightaway where there are actually 2 lanes going into a hairpin turn. Bev starts to try to come up on my outside, so I move out and then the rider behind me slips by me on the inside of the hairpin and she does indeed have a 900 series number. I follow her for a while until the stairs, where I slow to gingerly dismount and she gaps me a bit and increases it up the stairs. We go through some more turns and hit the barriers and she has maybe 5m on me. Almost immediately after the barriers, there is a narrow, off camber section of grass S turns and there is a group of lapped riders going into them. The rider in front of me gets by all of them just before the turn, but I only get by all but one of them, and that one is going about 1mph on the off camber grass, but there is just no way to pass her until after the 2 turns.  I set off after rider X, but her gap is bigger now, and there is only the ride/run-up and the finish straight left. Our gap stays about the same to the finish, but as we hit the finish straight she stands up and sprints a rider next to her, which turns out the be Kris, who was in the lead! I had no idea she was that close. Kris did hold off the other rider for her 2nd back to back national title, and the other rider turned out to be Karen Hogan, who had aged up from the 40-44 group where she podiumed last year. I finished only 4 sec. behind those 2 in 3rd. Bev was 4th 20 sec. back

Overall, it was a pretty frustrating race for me. There are horses for courses, and this one was definitely not mine, so I can take some satisfaction in making it through the race without crashing (except when I was hit from behind) and getting a podium spot. I keep thinking that if I had known the win was that close, I might have been able to go 4 sec. faster somewhere though! The real frustration however, was not really being able to race the first lap and a half due to all the traffic, and feeling that the outcome of the race was affected by people not in my race. I talked to other women from my race afterwards and everyone had their difficult passing story and the start was a nightmare for everyone, so in a sense, we all had the same difficulty. With 40-50 women in each division, for a national championship, it seems we should have been allowed to have our own race, or at the very least, there should have been a much bigger gap between the first 2 larger groups.

Despite the conditions, NorCal women did very well in Bend, but I unfortunately broke the winning sweep! Barb Howe won the 30-34 race, Kerry Barnholt won the 35-39 and Gina Hall won the 40-44. Linda Elgart was a contender in the 50-54 race, but unfortunately flatted and had to run almost an entire lap.

The next day, Kerry and I went skate skiing for 3 hours at Mt. Bachelor, which was a lot of fun and, in my opinion, a far better use of snow!!

Print | posted on Monday, December 14, 2009 9:32 AM