Cross Is Here!

Point form catchup

-worlds was crazy. Bad start, dropped chain, crash, off the back, played the catchup game and moved up pretty well, crashed hard on rocky decent and don't remember much until the hospital.

So the MTB season is over and I am really satisfied with it. I achieved my goals and then some. So I can't complain about a bad race at worlds because I was just happy to have been there on home soil. The experience will stay with me for years to come.

Now it's time to hang the mtb bike up and pull down the cross bike! I'm not going to lie I have been looking forward to cross season for a while now. After a bit of time off the bike to recover from the crash at worlds and to get some fresh legs I raced the Durham cross classic. With a guest appearance from Mike Garigan and the Mr. Box I was excited for a fast race. I got the whole shot in to the first "run up" and rode it. Well until my tire rolled off. Guess I should have done some maintenance on the bike before racing it. Got the tire back on and chased hard for a few laps but kept weight on the front because I was scared of rolling it again. Decided to switch onto the old bike after a few laps. Got about 100ft out of the pit and snap goes the chain. I'll skip the details but Craig let me run back and grab my other bike again. At that point I was in last. So I just went into TT mode and saw how many guys I could pick off. Found out at the end that I came 3rd. I'll take that. Great race and awesome course this year. Too bad the turnout was poor.

Moving on to the next weekend in Wisconsin For the first USGP weekend of the year. Went with Rick Myloff. Really chill and fun trip. The race was crazy fast with some of the fastest guys from Europe there and a very fast Canondale team. The first day saw more bike problems this time the drivtrain. Ended up running the last bit of the race and don't really know where I finished.

Second day went much better. I had my best cyclocross start ever riding with Berry Wick for the first lap. Made a few mistakes after that and lost that group. Spent most of the race battling with fellow u23 Cody Kyser for the 3 spot in our race. But once again my bike decided to quite on me. Ok it's my fault for for not making sure it was working well before the trip. Anyways I struggled with my bike for the rest of the race and managed to salvage a 36th place finish.

Dispite the bad luck there is a lot of good to take away from the race. Great experience at these US races. The level is so high and gives you a good idea of what you need to do to be good in this sport.

Feeling motivated from the weekend I have been doing some good training this week. Feeling a bit tired from it though so tomorrows race should be interesting. Looking forward to it though. Got my bike all sorted out so I don't expect to see any bike issues this time. The only one I can blame for a bad race will be myself.

All for now :)