Yesterday I got back to the AZ Cross scene for the first time since last year. Being that it was the last race of the series before the state race, I figured it would be a fun practice of the skills and a chance to catch up with regulars once again. It’s fun, low-key scene, but the racing is always exiting. After having done El Tour the day prior I wasn’t quite sure about how my legs would be with five hours of Tempo in them. I’ve learned that it really doesn’t matter how you feel going into a race, rather it’s all about your perception and the expectations you bring to the starting line. If you tell yourself that your tired it makes for an easy excuse to have a bad race. I like to have fun on the bike, keep positive and race hard. Usually the harder the race the better since this makes it easy to keep focused. This is exactly what I got.
We raced for twelve laps and on the eighth I flatted my front tire (something sharp in a smooth grassy section of the course, gotta love phoenix parks…) At that point I had a comfortable, but only ten second gap over second rider and third and fourth weren’t much further behind. I was able to cautiously ride the flat straight sections only to run all the corners or changes in elevation. I got passed shortly before pit then once Dan helped me get a wheel in, Kyle and Cam had just charged by. So from fourth the chase was on and I had four laps to make up my 30 second stop, plus whatever was lost by slower lap with the flat. The gap was decreasing all the while to the lead and eventually I made my back to the front with about a lap and a half to go. The effort required was sizable, especially after all of the extra running prior to the wheel change. The racing was full speed the entire time so the win was a great reward. Dan was directly responsible since it was his spare wheel that made the chase back to the front possible. Thanks! Also, the REI guy doing tech support helped me complete my new brake setup earlier in the day, fitting some proper straddle cables to the Paul Neo-Retros. As setup, they have similar power to my old Avid’s, much better modulation, much more clearance, and they look very clean on the bike. Things ought to be set for the state championship which is just less than two weeks away.
Since a once a week blog update tends to be the norm here, I figured adding a new feature could help things out and add some life to site. I’ve added the twitter application so now you’ll find mini-feeds at the top of the right column. I’ll leave snippets regarding my day to day there so check back whenever you might want to catch the latest bit.
Later, -TJ
Entries (RSS)