Tuesday night's cyclocross race featured a course which, I think, should suit me a little better. It was very flat with lots of difficult turns. Some turns got a little easier as the night wore on as leaves were cleared from the racing line. I'm not a good climber and I tend to go through corners faster than those around me so it should have been a good race for me.
After last week's fiasco through the first few turns, I had considered trying to be in front for the first corner but this course had a few gentle corners before the sharper turns. I did move up after the start but I was still stuck behind some riders who were slow through the corners. Lots of corners with short straights meant it was difficult to get past riders. I really tried to sprint out of corners when I thought I could overtake someone in front of me who was a little slower. Single barriers in two different spots helped me quite a bit. I'm normally faster than those around me when it comes to getting off and on my bike and I received some pointers from Aaron Schoolar the night before.
My lap times turned out to be very different from my expectation. Traffic usually slows down my first lap and my second lap was affected by pulling off to the side right in front of one of the most difficult corners to let the leaders of the A group go through. It ended up costing me quite a bit as two or three riders in my group had just been passed and I couldn't jump back on the track right in front so I lost a few positions. In retrospect, I shouldn't be such a nice guy. I actually pulled off to the side again on that second lap. I think I was pushing the limit of low air pressure in my tires and my rear actually felt like it was going flat. It seemed okay when I stopped so I ended up completing the race. The stops were fast enough that my GPS didn't end up recording any rest time. I thought I might have been pushing a little too hard for my fitness level on the first two laps but, if I did end up backing off, I must have picked up speed through the corners as my third and fourth laps were, by far, my fastest. My heart rate was about the same for all four laps so there isn't much proof that I backed off.
In total, I covered 7.2 km in 24:49 for an average speed of 17.4 km/h and a maximum of 30.2 km/h. The maximum came right at the finish line as I thought I had someone right behind me through the last corner and I didn't want to give up one more position at the end. I had an average heart rate of 168 bpm with a maximum of 179 bpm. My lap times were 6:15, 6:24, 6:07, and 6:02.
I'm trying to figure out what to do with my current cyclocross bike. I have a feeling that there's something wrong with my rear hub and it feels like it has some internal resistance. It's not an obvious problem but something that I feel is there. I'd also really like a new bike, as mine is nearly 8 years old, and I'd really like to get a new one with disk brakes. My club's bike shop doesn't have any bikes with disk brakes in stock and I don't know when they might get any. I have a friend who tweets about her great wheel sponsor but they're out of stock until 22 Oct and my season ends 11 Nov. Plus, new wheels doesn't get me a new bike with disk brakes.
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