Ivory Tower Cyclist: BAMACROSS DIRT CRIT

I'll get back to this past season's road racing momentarily, but for now I want to jot down my thoughts about cross, since I'm elbows-deep in it at the moment...

I'm just going to throw it out there: there's nothing better for me, a roadie, than a cross race that is not really a cross race.

Cue BAMACROSS Dirt Crit 2015.

Bamacross, if you don't know, is a great series, full of cool people, and with exactly the kind of fun you'd expect from fall racing. This year, I've moved on from the old to the new, giving the old Cyfac a chance to bring someone new into the sport, and moved on to a Trek Crockett 7, experimenting with CX1 and a tubeless setup.

I usually try to make CX a low-cost endeavor, in past seasons racing just a few times and spending something like $100 on nonperishable equipment: 2 new tires, say, or new bar tape. This year, with unloading a bunch of old garage bling and selling the Cyfac, I moved into a new Trek with minimal wallet pain. Set up ably and quickly by Marx and Bensdorf's sponsoring shop (Peddler in Memphis), the Trek was not the high-end carbon-frame disc-brake CX stallion on tubies that some people are riding, but then I'm not the rider that some people are. And with SRAM 1x and tubeless tires, I figured I was paring a few ounces off the rig compared to the Cyfac.

So with a new bike and some fitness from road season, I hauled over to Brookside to tear up some gravel and grass with Alabama's finest. Since I really wanted the fitness and adaptation, I went in for three races, the 35+, the 3/4, and the cat 3 race run with the 1/2s. It was a lot, and kinda warm out there, and so I was glad when they combined the singlespeed with the elite race and took that one off my plate for me.

In the 35+, I got my typical slow hole shot, but there was maybe 2-300 yards before drifting into an open right hand curve, and I had time to punch it again when I saw Omar going hard. In the dirt crit, the most technical parts were slightly slidey gravel where the difference between the best line and the worst line was maybe 10%--you had to ease off the gas just a little if you picked the worse line. Well, Omar didn't, and I hung onto his wheel for a lap or so, trying to hold his line with desperation leg throws while gradually redlining. He popped over the hill on the backside, held pace to take the first lap hole shot, and then gradually pulled away from me. I was happy at that point to let the speed do down a bit and not crash myself with two more races.

Grinding up the hill on the back side--pic by Sara Walker

Have to give credit where it's due :-) pic by Andrew Garza

In the 3 race, we got a fairly fast start, and the lead three or four guys all took turns attacking early. I am always game to toast myself early, and after the ditch dipsy-doo on the back side, I knew the trail turned up for a bit, and I hammered a gap open that I held through the backside grass and the steep little kicker. I took the hole shot and kept on the gas, gradually opening a substantial lead that I held to the end. This was not an easy effort, since on this course, it seemed possible for chasers to cooperate, and I would have to keep going hard through the lesstechnical sections in order to stay away.

Chicken Dinner! Pic by Molly Beth Shaffer

In the third race, after a lunch break, I jumped into the combined 1/2 and 3 race. I felt okay, but as events would prove, "okay" only goes so far in the third hour of racing. This was fast but also strategic, and super fun--the Infinity guys had enough strong riders that they could repeatedly push a rider up the road and let someone else chase or risk a real gap opening. I was trying to pay attention to who else was a cat 3, but I was also a little too eager to close a gap or jump ahead. I was hoping that by being ggressive, I could join a 1/2 rider (hopefully in a blue and black kit!) who would work with me and keep me ahead of the other 3s. It got a bit rough, and I wasn't descending the big hill as fast as some guys, and in the end, I popped hard after one too many surges up the hill. Riding the last 15 minutes at a more reasonable (cooked!) pace, I was passed by another cat 3, and ended up alone for 3rd on the 3 podium and something like 8th overall in the A race. It was a tough way to end, but I definitely put some fitness (or at least suffering) in my legs, I hope.