In love.... with Cyclocross!

And Summer turns to Winter. Wait, where did Fall go? Gotta love the weather in the Midwest...


Herman CX- Herman, MO September 17-18
Even though the weather is indecisive about the current season it is yet again that time. Cyclocross. The love of my life. Who couldn't love riding your bike in the freezing weather with mud, ice, snow, rain, and barriers? Anyway, as  I was saying, some of the first races of the season kicked off a week or two ago. My first race; Herman CX.  We start the day off by going to see my dad's GF and her niece run a charity 5k for the black footed cat at the KC zoo.  Immediately after they finished we took off to pack the car and wait for Chris Lock the get to our house. He had a friend taking his bike down but needed someone to drive him down to the race. 2.5 hours later we are in Herman, MO with a couple of hours until my dad's first race at 4:00 pm.


Race time- (Day 1) 4:00 pm
My dad went out with his first race of the day in Masters men 30+. Using it as a warm up he spent the whole race screwing around and checking out different lines for his more important race and my race. He pulled in a second place regardless of his lack of racing and came back with a couple of really good lines that we applied during my pre-ride.
Pre-ride and warm up- my race

Small barrier with Sunny on my heals

Props to Jeff Yielding for putting up an awesome course with lots of turns and a variety of terrain (except for hills). The course started out with a fast road sprint into a dive down a hill onto the outside of a baseball field with a couple of sharp turns to make things challenging. After a long ( and tiring) flight of stairs we went back around the outside of the baseball field, did some turns up and around some pine trees, across a short burst of road and into a sand pit. More turns and then another sand pit with a little bit of a twist. There were barriers right after the sand pit. Both of the barriers were short and the first one was ride-able but the second was on a off camber up hill and if you tried to bunny hop it you would spin out. Some people rode it but most didn't (That whole section was kinda challenging just because you were coming out of a sand pit with some speed then you had to run and remount on an off camber hill side). The rest of the course was pretty fast and really flat (power section) with a lot of hairpin and momentum turns. But right before all the fast stuff they had to through in another obstacle. Huge barriers. The first day on them was easy but the second day the area where you needed to dismount was really muddy from the water run off of the bike wash. There was also a contest going on for the first person to bunny hop the barriers on the first lap of every race. Needless to say, none of the open women even attempted to. After the pre-ride I just rode around, did a couple of sprints and dismounts/remounts to get ready for the race.


Race time- 7:00 pm

Rolling in for 4th with the lights coming on

I get to the start line and there are 12 other women. I wasn't really nervous because I didn't know anyone one out there except for talking to them a couple of times at other races or before our start. The rules were set and they blew the gun only to have me left in the dust of everyone's sprinting legs because I couldn't clip in! I jumped onto one of the women in the back of the pack and used her as a slingshot around everyone except the top 6 women on the down hill grass with a line my dad showed me. Unfortunately I might have made one lady mad because I cut her off on the next turn by going tape to tape... I passed 6th place on the stairs and 5th place right before the first sand pit. I ended up right behind the top 3 women  but Kelly and Carrie pulled away from 3rd and myself before the end of the second lap. I stayed with 3rd (Sunny Gilbert) for part of the 2nd lap but ultimately she pulled away and I was left in la la land between 3rd and 5th place. Towards the end of the race 5th place (Stepanie McCreary started to pull me back in but I held her off and took 4th. I raced on all my new sponsorship items and loved the setup. Van Dessel Full Tilt Boogie, State Wheels and Challenge Tires Limus. The whole combination was grippy, fast, and I managed to stay upright the whole race with absolutely no problems. Can I have two loves because I'm pretty sure I love my bike & Cyclocross too!

LOVED IT!!!!!!!

Race time - 9:00
Final race of the day and Jeff saved the best for last, Open Men. The fastest and loudest of all the races might I say too? The rest of my teammates raced at 9:00 including my dad. The start was pretty exciting even if my team didn't line up exactly how they wanted too. There were also quit a few crashes during this race, one of them took out Jeff Yielding. We did pretty good with two of our guys in the top ten, Andrew Coe in 4th and Travis Donn in 9th. Unfortunately one of our other riders had to pull because his crank arm came out. Here are day 1's Results.


Day 2
I raced at 1pm and my dad raced at 3pm. My race went the same way except that the course was a little sloppier and I pulled pretty far ahead of 5th place. That was really fun though because every time 5th and I saw each other we yelled encouragements. Kelly finished first again, But Carrie and Sunny switched places and Sunny got 2nd and Carrie got 3rd. 5th place and I both finished in the same place. 
My dads race wasn't so good after he went down and started to have issues with his ribs which he had crashed on earlier on in the week. Ethos did well over all with 3 of our guys in the top ten. Travis came in 5th, Andrew 6th and Cameron Rex in 9th. Here are day 2's Results.


Over all it was a great race weekend on a good course with perfect cyclocross weather and a great venue. Another race I will probably try to hit again next year if possible!