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Stevens Pond, Boxford MA

Yesterday I was disappointed with myself for not getting my head into the cyclocross race at Sterling.  This morning, I felt much better and optimistic about my performance there.  Patrick and I headed out about 6:30, we didn't know it at the time, but about the time we got onto the interstate, there was a 70 car and 3 semi accident in the city of Worcester caused by black ice on the overpass.  That isn't too far at all from Sterling.  About 7:30, I happily pulled on a hooded rain jacket and rode onto the course.  My friend Sam who remarked, "nothing like yesterday to make 39 degrees and rainy seem nice."  That was true enough, yesterday morning we had ridden the frozen course with temps in the teens.  Lap one pre-ride was nice, I rode the course with no problems and dove down past a line of guys who were off their bikes and staring at a frozen, bumpy, descent with a nice swoopy turn at the bottom.  Proud that I could show them how it is done, I reported to Patrick that "Cat 5 guys are sissies" when I passed the car.  He had decided to spend the morning inside of the car.  Lap two, I felt my rear wheel slip when I turned off the asphalt, the pavement was getting slick and that was not good.  The grooves over the full surface of the cinder track indicated that  the surface had melted yesterday afternoon and had been ridden all over prior to refreezing.  There was one groove of maybe 8 inches that seemed like the path to take.  Except it had a little rough spot in it, which I hit, bobbled, and veered off the track nearly colliding with a telephone pole.  That could have been disastrous at speed.  It looked like there would be no opportunity for passing on the track and it would likely be a venue for jam ups behind crashes.  Up on top of the hill, the line of people off bikes contemplating the descent had grown.  A man was working on coaching a young boy down it.  An announcement was made that the race would be delayed due to traffic delays.  I noticed ice forming on my handlebars and in the chain.  When I came around to the track again, the race organizer was out moving tape to force the course off the wide groove.  This left the route of hugging the tape on the outside to grab whatever grass could be found and then crossing the deeply grooved track through the turn.  I saw one guy drop his bike attempting this and another ride it admirably.  Clearly, this race would be a contest of bike handling.  Announcement of "stay in the saddle on the pavement and do not touch the brakes, do not touch the breaks, ensure you are riding over 30 psi, repeat do not touch brakes on the pavement.  I made it around the course to find race staff taking use of the delay to dump down quite a bit of salt on the entire pavement portion of the course.  I rode again, and found that two deeply grooved turns had become considerably more slick since my previous lap.  Not surprising, 2 guys crashed in one of them behind me.  I wondered it it might be safer to run that section, likely not as I've seen plenty of people fall running slick sections before.  I decided that I didn't feel comfortable riding the track at race pace.  I didn't feel comfortable paying $50 riding the race at a snail's pace.  This just wasn't the race for me.  After announcing my decision to leave to some friends tried to dissuade me using the arguments of "this is a skills race, after the first lap you'll have some space and can get out and ride (yes, true, but not persuasive) and "you won't be riding fast enough to break your collarbone" (I don't think this one would make it past the myth busters).  I did feel validated in my decision when I ran into some branches on the way back to my car thanks to the ice coating on my brakes.  The remainder of the morning was spent sitting in the car behind several car accidents on the ice.  I did get out in the afternoon after installing studded tires on the beast, of course by the time I got out, it was full rain and no need for the tires.  Ready for next time anyway. 

So, looks like I wrote up a race report for a race that wasn't.  Sorry for calling you sissies, Cat 5s.