Asheville CX Nationals 2016

Cyclocross nationals at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville was a blast! I decided to take a shot at cyclocross nats this year for multiple reasons. First, I wanted to see where I stood in relation to other top riders in the country. Second, I checked on travel costs (flights, rental car, etc) and they were amazingly low. So I figured I might as well give it a shot! I went down for the SS event, and I knew not to expect a massive result. The SS field is always stacked to at least the top 10-20, so anywhere remotely close to that can be considered a minor victory. I religiously monitored the Asheville CX Nats Facebook page to watch for updates and to learn as much as I could about the course, and some people even posted videos of a lap on the course. All of this was very informative and helpful, but I had no idea what I was getting into.

I decided to travel on the day before my race primarily because I wanted to stick to my routines as much as possible, but Michelle's lack of vacation days meant I had to squeeze it as tight as possible. So we went down on Thursday before I raced on Friday. We got there early enough to get some food and relax a bit, but in reality I spent much of the evening putting my bike back together after getting it out of my travel case. It was my first time using an Orucase Airport Ninja, and it worked as promised. No bike fees! That alone saved me $150, so I was pretty happy about it. The Airport Ninja is made to be within the dimensions that airlines do not charge for, so it was a super snug fit! But where there is a will there is a way, and I made it work. I was quite worried when I noticed the dust cap on my Beer Components eccentric bottom bracket had broken. This isn't a huge deal, but it left just enough space for my crank to have play in it when I pedaled. I didn't notice this until I was at the actual event on race day. I talked to the Shimano guys that were there and they said it shouldn't be a problem aside from potentially ruining my bearing. I figured I had come so far to get there that a messed up bearing was not worth stressing about!

The morning of the race I got up and had a run of the mill continental breakfast. Cereal and fruit is what I normally eat at home, so this wasn't such a bad thing. I resisted the urge to stuff myself with hotel waffles, and that was probably for the best. We left the hotel in order to get to the course right before it was going to be open for preriding from 11:45-12:30. It took a bit longer to get into the event than anticipated, so I didn't get the full time to preride. But I did get a lap in, which was hugely important since racing that course without spending any time on it would have been a disaster! The preride was going just fine and it was quite clear that this was going to be a bear of a course. It was full of climbs, steep descents, and runups. There was also a very technical descent that just ate me up all day. On the preride I actually wiped out on this descent, and numerous people had their cameras rolling. So maybe I'll be a YouTube star someday! My technical skills are certainly lacking to be able to routinely handle that descent, but it didn't help that my mechanical disc brakes were of little effect when I tried to slow myself while going down the hill. I guess I should mountain bike more.

After the preride I had about 1:45 until my race started, so I took this opportunity to pick up my packet at registration, relax a bit with Michelle, and then get into my warmup. The Biltmore Estate is a massive property owned by the descendants of the Vanderbilt family, and this allowed a lot of space to ride around to warmup rather than using a turbo. I actually spotted the "house" on the property when I was warming up, and it is a massive structure. Something like 135,000 square feet, and apparently it was for a family of 3 or 4 people!

The race itself was massive. The SS field had 150 people signed up (the maximum allowed), but I think there were only 130-140 that actually toed the line. This was easily the biggest race I had ever been in. My starting place, which was based on USA Cycling points, was somewhere in the high 40s, which was another reason I knew not to expect a massive result. The start of the race was hectic, but not quite as bad as I thought it would be. It seemed to settle down relatively quickly. I did my best to settle in to my groove, have fun, and see what I could do. I was able to move up a decent amount and for much of the race I was in the high 20s based on what people were yelling. The runups were probably favorable to me, but the steep descents really ate me up. While other people seemed confident to just barrel down them at full speed, I was more hesitant and just wanted to make sure I didn't fly over my bars. These 3-4 areas cost me a decent amount of time. I also lost time on the nasty descent that I crashed on during my preride. As a result, I ended up running this for multiple laps, and the laps I actually rode it I was very slow. This also cost me a significant amount of time. I can honestly say that a top 25 would have been entirely realistic in my opinion if I was more technically savvy, but I can't complain. I ended up 34th, which is something I'm content with. The first time doing such a big event was always going to be a huge learning experience, so now I feel that I'll be much more prepared for the next time.

This looked a lot steeper than this while riding!

It was a really fun and productive season, and I'm currently in the midst of what feels like a well deserved break for 8 days. I suspect I'll be chomping at the bit to ride as I get near the end of my break, but I'll resist the urge to give my body a chance to catch up. Nearly 10,000 miles in a year is a lot of saddle time, so I'm taking this time very seriously! When I'm riding again I'll start building up to this year's Dirty Kanza 200, which I signed up for over the weekend. I'm riding with gears this year, so hopefully the ability to shift will be beneficial compared to all my SS experiences.

Going under the infamous green Kask flyover.

An update not entirely related to my training or racing is that I'll be moving to Iowa in June. My wife matched for an ophthalmology fellowship position there, so we will live there from late June 2016 until the end of June 2017. After that is anyone's guess, but I suspect there is a pretty good chance we might be back in KC. I was a bit bummed about the whole Iowa thing at first since Denver was also a possible destination, but I think it might actually work out quite well. Jingle Cross will be impossible to miss, and I'll also be about 3 hours from Chicago. There are pretty sizable races there, so that should be really fun!