Boss Cross 4 / MO State Championships

When I first started cycling, someone told me the best way to get faster is to ride with fast people. In some cases, this may not be true, but I think it is generally correct. This is especially true in cyclocross.

Coming back from my first UCI races, I felt like I raced well, but I didn't race great. I did learn a lot about racing though. Watching the pros corner and accelerate, ride the tough sections that some chose to run, be very aggressive, start like maniacs, all of this was something that I haven't really experianced on a local level or even a regional Cat 2 level. The other thing is just making smart racing decisions. Don't try and ride sections that you can't. I think the key is figuring these things out before the race, then sticking to the plan once the race begins.

Anyway, on to the race. Many of the local heavy hitters are out west, but I assumed that the series leaders would be coming out. Unfortunately, it sounds like both Jeff Winkler and Jon Schottler were out with injuries. Meaning that I would win the series title as long as I finished in the top 5 or so. Josh Johnson and Dan Miller were going to be my main competition on the day. It was cold and very windy. About mid 30's, but it felt much colder.

On the start line. Dan Miller and Josh Johnson to my left. The start grid was tiny - maybe 42cm wide per box.

I missed my pedal for the first time all year, exacerbating my already poor starting ability. This meant I'd play catch up for the first two laps.

Moving up through the pack. Mark had a great start.

Movin' on up

 After a worse than usual start, and that is saying something, I fought my way up to the front of the race. I attacked just before the beach section (below) to take the lead. Dan went with me, but we had a gap back to Josh.

Taking the lead into the beach section.

 I decided I'd just push the pace, really punching things out of the corners into the headwind sections to hopefully not let Dan get too much draft advantage. It took a couple of laps, but I finally shook Dan off of my wheel and slowly widened the gap. I knew that Josh Johnson is a tremendous finisher, so I knew I would have to stretch out this advantage as much as I could to keep him away.

Once I got a lead, I quickly remounted and rode the run up after the barriers. I'm not sure this was much faster than running up it, but it saved energy and it made the descent much faster, since you didn't have to clip in over the bumpy descent. Thanks for the cheers guys! This was my favorite section to ride through. (Though I heard that there was some soccer-style heckling going on for our east-side racers. Remember to keep it classy everyone)

These two StL guys kept telling me I was going way too fast. Which was awesome.

On the bricks.

Getting a time check. I think I had about 25 seconds with 3 to go. It was great to have support all over the course.

 At four to go, my time gap to Josh and Dan was only 15 seconds and they were working together to bring me back. It had been about 20 on the previous lap, so I was not sure I had made the right move. So I really gassed it on the third lap and got another 10 seconds to put the gap at about 25. When I finally came through with one to go, I still had a 20 second gap to Josh, while Dan was a little ways back. I got my second local win of the year, also taking the Boss Cross series leader jersey.

Thanks to all who stuck around to cheer in the freezing conditions. A big thanks to JP Brocket for taking some awesome photos as well.