DSGP Round 1: NOLA

How much of New Orleans is below sea level?  If DSGP round 1 in Behrman Park is any indication, I'd say the answer is "everything except the fire ant colonies." They promised that There Would Be Mud, and there was:

Little did we know what was to come...no, scratch that...we knew...

The course was a mostly flat, winding course that would have been fast and grassy had any single blade of grass been able to survive longer than five minutes of 'cross tire slipping and sliding.  It went out, the wide start/finish straight giving traction for two inches down each side, narrowing to some marginally higher ground, a one-eighty that put you right back in the slop, Belgian gates in six inches of water around to the canal (faster but harder to run, every time), where an ever-softening gentle slope led racers ever-farther to the left in search of a solid line; back along the canal, up a runup the consistency of a forty-foot-long cow-patty, over the canal, along a long sloping verge to the head fo the canal, and twisting back to the start-finish through the ant hills and a sand pit that seemed marginally easier to ride than the mud...

It was a typically creative DSGP course with the mud negating the usual fast sections.  I wondered if fat bikes were going to show up and shred, but apparently not...I think it's a plus that, pushed by a combination of CX peer pressure (the best kind!) and course design, the league has largely graduated to dedicated CX bikes without needing rule restrictions...it's a good thing to remain open to riders who haven't yet jumped in and bought a CX bike, but it's also a good thing to not become a fat-tire short-track full-suspension league (there's a reason the officials at UCI races put calipers around everyone's tires!).  As much as my handling skills suck, I'll go on record supporting skills over suspension any day.

But back to the races:  as they told us on the start line of the 1/2/3, the cat 5 race had remained the fastest average times on the day, with every race getting progressively slower.  I believed it.  I had struggled to a second place behind Kupp in the 40+, where the slop made it a threshold effort just to stay upright.  That was too much, and I would pay for it in the 1/2/3 race.  A fast start saw Zach Thomas bolt out, chased by Ben Allen and Kupp, and although I redlined it in pursuit and stayed close for a bit, I was out of podium contention in no more than two minutes.  The power demands were relentless, and the first race had taken a lot out of my legs.  I opted for squaring off corners through most of the twisties, rather than risking the trenches, and I'm not sure if that was a good strategy or not.  On top of that, nervous or tired feet gave me consistent clip-in issues, and I ended up pedaling unclipped for maybe a third of the race (which difficulties would persist for the season, whenever I get a lumpy or rushed remount...I may have to go back to SPD pedals, but I'm a little concerned about mud buildup).  Toward the end, a consistently steady Stewie Pat caught me and went on to take fourth, leaving me to suffer it in for fifth, my first drop race in the series.

I'm pretty sure that's not a smile.

Afterward, as the temperature fell, Wes and crew did instant podiums and we all scuttled off to do snow angels in the standing water over in the middle of the park, trying to get the mud off our bikes and ourselves, out of our shoes, kits, earholes, butt cracks...Scott and I ended up filling gallon jugs with hot water from the stadium bathrooms, taking open-air showers and peeling kit gradually as unspeakable amounts of mud continued to emerge from everywhere mud could hide.

Five hours later, I'm home, to spend the next week cleaning and doing inventory on bike parts that need replacing--that one race came close to freezing up a bottom bracket bearing and chewing up a chain.  CX isn't the worst, but it's not super cheap either. 

Next up, Round 2 in Monroe, which would prove my theory that a two day race with reversed course will favor me one day, but not the other.  And my other theory that crashes are a great source of calcium.