CX off the old year

I rode out to Cross Out the Old Year from home, riding into a 20+ mph headwind. The temperatures on the afternoon ended up dropping from 45 at noon when I left, to 25 by the time I got back. I figured riding to and from most of these post Christmas races would be a good way to get some miles and intensity in for road season.

The course was not terribly challenging except for the monster hill near the end of each lap. I'm not sure how steep it was, but there was a bit of a chicane leading into this climb, so you were not able to carry much speed into it. I could ride about 3/4 of the hill before stalling or spinning out.

Another interesting feature to the race was that it was only 40 minutes. I wasn't sure if this would have much affect on the race.

Shadd went right to the front of the group off the start, then Britton, Me, and the rest. The pace was not too fast most of the lap, so I think everyone was together. When we got to the climb, Shadd was the only one able to ride it completely, so he got a bit of a gap. I was really aggressive on the descent, so I caught up fairly quickly. At this point, we had a gap, but the two chasers were Adam Mills and Luke Linenger. So I had to go keep the pace high enough so they couldn't reconnect. The climb on lap two was about the same, except it took

me longer to catch back on. I was a little concerned about this, since the climb was the only major feature on the course and it was so close to the end of the lap.

I finally caught back on somewhere midway through lap 3, then tried to keep the pace reasonably high into the climb so that I could lead. I was still not able to ride the entire climb, but I think that my leading kept Shadd from being able to ride it, turning it into a run to the top. I was able to get a little gap from this, then charged aggressively through the rest of the lap to hold the gap. This ended up being the right move as I was able to stay clear the rest of the race.

Afterwords, I got to ride home with a 20+ mph tailwind, which was nice.