GMCX Day 1 and 2

Photo by Starr Walker.

My history with GMCX is not very glorious, mostly due to scheduling conflicts that kept me from racing. But now, I have finally completed BOTH of the days, and despite the elevation that had many a fine cyclocross racer praying for death, it was a beautiful weekend for the bicycle racing.


Day 1


Or rather, "the non-UCI race."

Despite it's lack of inscription, there were still no scrubs.

Due to my inexplicably good Crossresults ranking, I had a decent staging position. The start went directly uphill, which I did not mind. The whistle blows and of course I slide back and try to fight my way back to the front again.

Somewhere on the uphill start, Donny Green was taken out by some sort of large Nerf gun and I heard moans and groans behind me. A lap or two later I felt the cold sting of foam and collapsed in similar place uphill, it was an ambush waiting to happen.

This was found abandoned near the Catamount Center by Williston police soon after the race.

The race sorted itself out and I found myself riding in a group with Reuter, Sweeney, and assortment of Keough's, and a Wayne Bray. Possibly a Phil Wong in there as well.

So naturally, I go to blink and realize I can't see out of my right eye anymore. See, I have this problem with contact lenses falling out of my face. It's not fun.

I wanted to minimize the damage, and when I passed The Schon at the top of the hill I told him to get my glasses out of the car and meet me in the pit. Yes, in my desperation I pitted for glasses.

I lost my group and spent the last four laps chasing, and in my oxygen debt managed to make a few interesting bobbles that did not help the chase effort. I still managed to pick off a couple Canadian's who had been shelled from the main group, and found myself staring at Evan Huff's back wheel getting ever close with only a couple turns left in the race. Oh, wheel teat, lead me to the finish. I closed a decent gap on the flat section, but he opened up a sprint on the finish and kept me at bay for 19th.

Day 2

If day one was any indication, if I could keep my shit together I could pull together a half decent result. I felt like I was handling the climbing much better than most people, and the turns were not significant enough to make a huge difference. I staged third row after my UCI "draw" and everyone seemed to stay upright in the start this time.

After Powers, Bazin, Driscoll and possibly Lindine went off the front, the rest of the race was hanging out for the first few laps, spanning Adam Myerson to Anthony Clark. The guys at the front were waiting for an attack while the guys at the back were attacking each other so they could ride on Joachim Parbo's wheel. Eventually things settled and I was riding in a group with Kevin Sweeney, Anthony Clark, Dan Chabanov and Christian Favata. At the top after the run up, Favata faded out a bit. At some point Ted King blew through our group on the flat section and I told Anthony to chase him ass down. Chabanov slid back a bit before the climb, and as our group of three remained I attacked on an uphill portion and started to put time in Kevin and Anthony.

Yeah, eat my dust Ted King. Before you own everyone. Photo by Starr Walker.

Sometime during this whole exchange, I lost a contact in the other eye, but this time determined not to lose my group said "screw it" and used squinty-vision. I felt less like I was going to crash on the decent and it was cool, though I might have bashed some rocks I could have avoided with more depth perception.

Anyway, coming into the barriers with 2 to go I see an Embrocation kit ahead of me. It turned out to be a demoralized Wayne Bray, which was great because he was AHEAD OF ME! I made an attack but he was able to counter at the top of the hill. With one to go I saw in the corner of my eye a train being driven by Donny Green and got a bit nervous. I worked back up to Wayne, and with one to go he managed to put a second or two into me, and by the final turn he was able to open up a decisive sprint. We kept the chase group at bay and I had a all time high score of 12th place, weeeeee.


Reflection

Even though this race is a metric butt load of miles from Boston, and the course is climby for a CX race, the event promotion is awesome and I still had a great time. Yeah, the course lacks difficult turns, and a few things could be done differently, but if they used all the flat ground for the race there would be no place to park. Also, the lack of a UCI race on Saturday gives scrubs like me a chance to win more money (if done correctly), which I view as a win-win. Plus, there are tons of awesome places to eat in Burlington and plenty of Burlingtonians to make fun of while you are there. Just watch out for wrongboarders.