Boss Cross Weekend

Another race weekend in the books. Very tough course, but a great location for spectators. Weather was ideal for being outside. The park was a bit ripped up this year. It looked like they were about 75% done installing new paths, so there were lots of dirt berms before loose graded gravel sections. I hope we didn't tear up the work being done too much...

Saturday the field was pretty loaded. Tradewind and Big Shark were both out in full force. Ethos had almost our full contingent as well. I got a good start and took the wholeshot. I led most of the first lap with Steve Tilford on my wheel. We had a little gap back to the rest of the field. I crashed on the one technical ride-up of the course, then had to run a little to get momentum. Jon Schottler was about to come by me when he slid out and I ended up stepping on his front wheel and breaking it (although he finished the race on it somehow). From there I rode with Jon and Josh Johnson for several laps. I was not going very well on the ride-up and it ended up being faster for me to just run it. I did seem to have some advantage running the sand, so after a couple of laps I put in a surge after one of the runs and got a little gap.

In the 2010 Series Leader jersey. Thanks Mark Breeding for the photo.

Tilford was long gone, so I focused on trying to ride smoothly and keep my distance from Josh, while Jon was having struggles with his back (and maybe wheel as well). Josh kept closing the gap then I would have to surge to try and maintain, so it was a good back and forth battle. In the end I was able to keep my gap and got 2nd.

Note the sand pit and where the paved paths were in the past.

Sunday, there were about as many people in the race, but the Tradewind crew had gone to a gravel 100 miler. I got another pretty good start behind teammate Travis and we had a couple of seconds gap after the end of the first lap. I thought I would give it a go from there to try and maintain the gap, so I went to the front on lap two and kept the pace high. Travis hooked up with Jon Schottler behind for a couple of laps, then Jon started to close the gap to me. I had been riding the obstacles very well throughout the day, but on laps 7 and 8 I made several little mistakes that really cost me some time. I had some trouble unclipping for a sand pit, then almost washed out on the grass right before the barriers. Jon had caught up to me at this point, but I still felt like I was riding ok, and I was handing the running sections a little better. I kept trying to open another gap, but Jon was riding super strong and nothing was working.

Leading Jon near the end of the race. Thanks Roger Harrison for pic.

On the last lap, Jon got by me right after the barriers. He led into the sand. I should have tried to get back past at this point, but was pretty cooked. I screwed up clipping in off the sand, but got back on quickly, though the finish was less than 200m ahead. It was a two up sprint and Jon got it. Fun, super hard day on the bike, but another 2nd place.