CX Redux: Mid-South CX Championship

The short:  3rd place CX4, a little more 'cross practice, and some free schwag.

The long: 

In a previous lifetime, I knew Outdoors, Inc. in Memphis as a retail haven for people with my borderline antisocial-slash-petrophile tendencies, and a good place to buy replacement quickdraws, wool socks, and fuel cannisters for my stove.  But after giving up on rock climbing in the delta and trading in crash pads for...well, padless crashing, I guess...I have come to appreciate OI's role in the cycling community as well. 

OI has now sponsored 26 editions of one of the best-attended, funnest cross races in the mid-south.  In some ways, that's might be big-fish-small-pond, but 26 years of anything, much less jumping barriers and redlining into the Mississippi floodplain wind, is pretty impressive.  That means they were doing cyclocross before it was trendy, before you could get a fine Belgian ale in every Philadelphia pub, long before Louisville ever imagined they'd be hosting the world championships...back when mountain bikers had no choice but to become roadies in November, Memphis was there doing the 'cross thing.

I was pleased to have a cross race within an hour and a half drive, and with no hesitation I recruited Davis and Clay to help share the ride, and we booked it up to Mud Island on race day.  It was cool, overcast, and a little blustery, but just about right for racing.  A quick preride confirmed the course would be fast and fun, with no really technical sections to annoy roadies with no handling skills.  From the start/finish, it bounced up and down an embankment a few times, making an offcamber turn or two into a wattage-sapping grassy level, a short run-up some stairs, up and down the bank a few more times, over a fast triple barrier, and down the long start-finish straight into the wind.  And then do it all again. 

After seeing off some kids races, the B race got going.  Remembering my first race, when a number of fast riders just took off early and never came back, I planned to hammer a bit harder at the beginning, especially since I wasn't worried about taking singletrack on the 'cross bike.  I stayed up front, leading for a while--not working too hard, but setting an honest pace, and the usual suspects started to pass and pull away. 

I'm not sure I had any business leading these guys, but they rectified the situation soon enough.

That was fine, although it became evident that I might have been tired, or may have pushed too hard early, because there were a few more people than I really wanted in front of me as the race went on.  It was windy enough that we were frequently sighting trailing and leading riders, which helped me stay motivated and on the gas.  Late in the race, I thought I felt a slow leak, and since there weren't many riders around, I contemplated just trying to get to the finish on inflated rubber.  One or two more riders passed me, and I calculated that I was probably fourth in CX4.  It turned out I had just underinflated the rear tire and failed to really feel it until my late-race mentality set in, and it also turned out that at least one of the 4s, racing well in front of me, was actually racing masters.  So I pulled in best I could to find out later that I had actually made top 3 in the 4s.  I'll take it. 

Davis on the triple barrier

Davis and Clay had both turned in strong performances on mountain bikes, Clay on the singlespeed Chupacabra picking up places on the little uphills.  Frikkin' skinny climber.  But Clay did produce the big win of the day by using his insider knowledge to point us to Huey's in midtown, where we enjoyed the now sunny and warm afternoon.  A cool brew, a massive burger, and some gargantuan onion rings later, we were back on the road to OxVegas.