Declining Enrollment?

Gee, after reading Gewilli's depressing post, I'd hoped to spin something positive today. Allow me to say something positive then: I love riding my bike. Saturday was very cool. And cool temps too. The UNH CX event at Kingman Farm, well, let's call it the best race that nobody went too ever. I think they got less than 80 riders total. At registration, someone lamented that they needed 104 to break even. What a bummer. It was cold out, but they did not flood the course this year, and they eliminated all the single track from the woods. The layout made up for it with some nice varied looping and a mix of high speed and trickier turns out in the cow pasture. Some thought it was unimaginative, but I liked it a lot. The course was basically all gas all the time. The combined masters field numbered only 14 strong, and off the start the Cronoman, Curley, and Keith Button (Noreast) set the pace. One the first lap, I did exactly what I'd vowed not to do and rode like an idiot, taking bad lines over the bumps to move around people when gaps opened. Most of them repassed me when I overextended, and on lap two Wayne Cunningham, Carl Ring (NHCC), and Andrew Durham (CCB-Evil Empire) formed a second trio about fifteen seconds behind the leaders. I ended up in no man's land another fifteen seconds back from them after two of my BOB team mates piled into each other and planted themselves in the ground on one of the muddy turns. Timmy got by them too, but he there was a gap between he and I too.

We did seven laps. At two to go I drove it hard and closed up to Wayne, who had fallen just off the other two. I should have gone around and kept driving, but I sat on him for a bit. After the hurdles, I think he tried to remount on the rise and faltered. I ran to the top as on every other lap, opening a small gap. I closed to the Ringer but he held me off down the hill and all the way to the line.

After the race I put on a dry kit, including my new woolies, and headed out solo for some exploring on the road bike. Found some nice quiet roads, and just kept riding and riding. After an hour I turned around to retrace my route (had no idea where I was) and found I now had a tailwind. Thoroughly enjoyed this ride even though it was in the 30's and windy. Made good time going back but then must have missed a turn, got lost for a half an hour and made it back to the car just as the handful of elite riders were cleaning up from their race. I logged just under 2.5 hours, making it a 3.5 hour day on the bike. I love riding.

Sunday I wanted to go out riding some more. I had a pot luck party to go to in the afternoon, and needed to try my hand at some cooking in order to contribute. Saturday was a long day in the car too, so I skipped Lowell and just headed over to Norwood for the 4 mile running race. This is a decent sized annual event, about 400 runners, and quite a bit of prize money so the race attracts a strong field. I should have gone riding first though, because for some reason they did not start at 10:30 as advertised; the race was at 11. I ran well, posting 5:56, 6:00, 6:06, and 6:00 splits on the hilly course (not steep, but almost no flats) to take 6th in my age group. By then it was too late to ride, and I just went home to try the recipes Gewilli had given me for hors d'eurves. They came out all right for a first try, but not great. This was not a drinking crowd either, and my jello shots went more or less untouched. And I ate too much. Good thing I love riding my bike... Went out this morning and just rode the cx bike around the pasture for a while until I got a flat, then limped home.

Oh yeah, the declining enrollment thing. Maybe Colin can crunch the numbers and figure out if the number of cross entries is fading like it seems. There were about 650 riders/day back at Gloucester, with another hundred or so at a small race in PA the same day. There was also another UCI race in Ohio that weekend. This past weekend, the NJ race got only about 425, UNH got shit, and I'm not sure about Cheshire. It would be interesting to see how the numbers graph out over the season. This might support or undermine Gewilli's wish for more January racing (maybe he's burning out now and will rethink? Of course he'll rethink. And rethink. And rethink...). Hell Colin, this could even be valuable demographic info to somebody. Maybe you should try to sell it to the marketers serpents of the world. By the way, I love riding my bike. No proofing. Thanks for reading.