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| Surf City #4: That Old Familiar Feeling In this case, that song title means a good thing. After riding like stale garbage for five weeks I finally had a ride like the old days--that is, with good legs. So if this is November the venue must be Watsonville. The county fairgrounds continually proves to be one of the best 'cross venues around--though I've also heard good things about the Central Coast site at Prunedale that I have yet to see first-hand. Anyway, at Watsonville we have dirt, mud, grass, gravel, runups, pavement, you name it--a rich palette of surfaces from which to craft a course. Sunday's could be described as the Fast Course, With Runup. Start out on hard dirt, slight downhill into some rutted mud, some sharp corners on gravel, gradual uphill pavement, then onto the grassy backside. That's where the fun begins: off-camber grassy corners, gravelly hairpins, fast ups-and-downs, twists and turns, all building up to an encounter with the Big Muddy Run-up. Gasping for air, a couple more quick turns on bumpy grass, then the finish line and a triple barrier to start the next lap. For the A's, several guys raced in the Boston SuperCup the afternoon before and still managed to rush home in time for SCCX. That's a feat I'm perfectly happy not to attempt. Justin Robinson's plane reportedly didn't touch down until 10 am Sunday. All that jet lag seemed to have no effect: Justin and Ben Jacques-Maynes battled for the lead as usual, with Ben taking his third win in four races. On the other hand, some other contenders had less than spectacular results, so you figure it out. Meanwhile, none of the top women returned from Boston for this race, so the working-class girls had their day with Nicole Amaral earning a well-deserved first-ever win. Well done. In Master 35, Larry Hibbard won as usual, though in the following A race he uncharacteristically began acting his age. Maybe he had a mechanical. As for me, I already gave away how I did. Every other race this year has been an excercise in sucking for me until Sunday, when somehow I miraculously sprouted new legs. Avoiding a variety of pile-ups at the hairscramble start, I picked my way through the chase groups and found a good rhythm on the course, with some recovery sections to balance the suffering. Eventually I caught a group of three on the last lap consisting of east coast transplant John Funke, a new and improved Dave Wierzba, and kool Kestrel-equipped Brian Laird. Sadly, they all smoked me at the finish with Funke leading the charge for 10th, followed by Dave (11th three races in a row), Brian 12th and me 13th. I need to learn a lesson here: in every race going back three years in which I have been in a pack at the finish, I always came in last. Take note, you guys. But I was sure happy to be up there for a change this time around. Race notes: - Since autumn still hasn't arrived in Surf City, all the "mud" sections on the course were mostly dry. Just for yuks I've come up with a mud index (see http://members.aol.com/napavelo/mud.htm) to classify the stuff; by that scale, the brief mud sections here were no worse than Grade 2 and the course avoided several muddier areas. Plus the temperatures were in the high 60's. Maybe Jeff & crew will dig up some actual weather for the finals. - Every year a couple guys break into the top 10 of the A's alongside the perennial contenders. Hats off this year to Justin Morgan and Jackson Stewart. Both are young guys who rode in the top 20 or so last year but now finish in top 10 almost every week, with a pair of podium finishes between them. Watch out for these guys. Ditto for Nicole Amaral, who now sits on top of the season standings for the first time. - For those of you who have been racing SCCX a while, the courses have been steadily progressing from "Bob-cross" (like East Bay) technical nightmares to more Euro-like speedfests. This course hit a new high on the Euro' scale, or rather a low if measured in dismounts: just three get-offs per lap, and only two if you don't count the run-up. Plus the laps were long. In a nine-lap race, that means you dismount for barriers only eighteen times in the whole race. Let's compare that to last week's Sonoma State race: eight dismounts per short five-minute lap, in other words ninety-six bone-jarring impacts in the course of the event. Ouch, my back hurts just thinking of that. Meanwhile, back at Surf City we may see a race one day soon in which there is not even one single barrier. That might be enough to bring even Roger Marquis back into 'cross. - Refs Casey and Tom have started recording lap times in most races, which is very cool. Now it's possible to see how the various categories stack up and how the leaders progress. In A's, some days the leaders turn in their fastest laps at the end but Sunday's was the opposite. Maybe Ben was feeling his legs from SuperCup. - Fields are still rather small out here: though the B's mustered a season high 74 finishers, there were only 43 in the A's. Where did all the 'crossers go? See ya, Dave Carr Napa Valley Velo |