Photo by Dan Gindling
I'm out of order here; this one happened the weekend before nationals. The event took place at Balboa Park, home of the San Diego Velodrome. This was SCPS #14 but with a non-series race the same day, as well as the distance from LA, the turnout was expected to be somewhat lower than at Glendale. Overall though, the promoters were pleasantly surprised, as they got so many entrants they ran out of numbers. In the 45+ though, we had just 14 starters, but with some quality riders nonetheless.
The course was FAST. Kind of a throwback to the 90's with cheesy single barriers, but I was loving it because it was power, power, power. The nickname of this race is Balboa Roubaix because a large section of the course traverses a barren dirt lot where the surface is mostly embedded rocks. Not too many of the kind that stick up and give you pinch flats, just stuff like you see in the linked photos. After a circuit of the vacant lot, the course led up and down through some varied trails among scrub brush, then around the back of the velodrome. A short ride/runup led to some grass around tennis courts. It had been heavily watered, so there was even a little mud! A course tape "pinwheel" preceded a fast off-camber around the tennis courts before a short hill and barrier section led back to the fast open power section. On the last lap only, we were diverted into the velodrome for a 1.5 lap finish. I think it's a concrete 250 of around 28 degrees banking, similar to Encino.
At the start I fell into the conga line about halfway back to see how things shook out. At first I thought it was all together but as soon as we got through all the chicanes and hit the open area it became evident that the top three had already opened a huge gap on the rest of us. The lot sits high on a hill overlooking the city and ocean, and it was windy. This was also the coldest day San Diego had seen in a long time. The locals were shivering in the 55 degree temps. Honestly, with the wind, when the sun went behind the clouds it really was a little chilly. I saw more than a few down parkas. I'm not kidding.
Feeling strong, I drilled it away from the group and was closing the gap on the lead three. One of them was jumping away from the other two, who appeared to be in a very negative drafting match, probably the reason that I *almost* was able to close the gap before the twisties. I burned a half match, maybe more, but three minutes into a 45 minute race I felt it wise to hold back something. That was probably a mistake. Losing sight of the lead trio, and with only one pre-ride lap, I overshot a few corners and even went off-course once, as it could have been taped off a bit better than it was. Like I said, small race, bit of a throwback.
As it was two riders were able to bridge up to me from behind, and I never saw the lead three again. Instead, I became entangled in a battle with the other two. One guy was on a mountain bike. You still see this in SoCal, and there are even riders in the elite races who run CX bikes with flat bars. Some of them are quite fast too. In the "pinwheel" the course tape was blowing all over the place. It was staked out wide, and I tried to use the entire width to late-apex the inner stake and get good exit speed. But the combination of blowing tape and my blurry vision conspired to have me totally botch it, and I cut across two stakes early, riding myself straight into the tape while the other two cut behind me, bewildered. Now I was playing catch up. I told you I got myself entangled in a battle...
Luckily the MTB guy was sitting on the other guy, and I was stronger than both of them. I bridged up on the windy section, then sat on to recover before going around as soon as we hit the twisties. Going into the ride/runup, the first guy passes me, and then the MTB guy tries to, but I shut him down. He starts growling at me, saying "you'd better not be getting off" and I'm like "you bet your ass I am." I mean fuck, it's a cross race. The thing was rideable I guess, but I hadn't had time to scout the lines. And I think running was just as fast. It sure was for me that lap, as I totally nailed it, passed the first guy on the remount and sprinted away, distancing myself from both of them. The rest of the race would be a solo TT, no drama on the velodrome, and I ended up fourth.
A week of training and no work had left me feeling pretty spry, and in SoCal a second race is only $5, so I signed on for the 3/4 event an hour later. There were about 40 starters, I think. This time I lined up second row as series leaders got callups. My recently acquired course knowledge would help, so I was more aggressive on the start, even though it was kind of a clusterphuck with a log barrier about 100m into it, and a larger pack this time. Onto the power section I was feeling very fit, all opened up, really better than I have all cross season. I'm still not the best starter, but I picked off a rider here and there and moved into the top 10. My dismounts and barrier running were better than they've been all year too. One of my main fitness goals this entire season was to improve my overall athleticism and I think I succeeded. I'm doing much better at actually "leaping" when I approach the barriers, confident that my jump off will produce the needed air time, and I'm smoother on the remounts. At least I was out in SoCal anyway; I wasn't losing ground on the barriers, and may have even been gaining some.
The race developed into a three or four way battle with those near me, with others still in sight ahead, so things were looking up. Having a full race on this course behind me, I'd been hitting the lines perfectly, especially the pinwheel... Until of course, I repeated the exact same mistake as in the first race, lost my bearings in the blowing tape, and rode right into it. Three guys got by this time. But like I said, my lungs felt big and open, my legs felt awesome; I owned these guys, so I charged back after them, faster than I'd gone all day. Flying into the off-camber turn around the corner of the tennis courts, I buried the inside pedal into the turf, high-siding myself violently down the slope. Ouch. Wasn't planning on that. One more guy got by. A bit shaken, I got up, quickly rode it off and started to try to charge back yet again. My adrenaline was kicking in and I was thinking "you can still salvage this, nats is next week, don't save anything, GO!" This is not my normal modus operandi, but like I keep saying, I felt great and think I was hitting a nice peak fitness-wise at just the right time.
Remounting over the big log jump, I powered off into the wide-open vacant lot autobahn. But then I felt a "pop" and suddenly my front wheel is rubbing the brakes with every revolution. Weird as I did not feel it immediately after the crash, but it did not seem bad enough to be a broken spoke either. I probably should have stopped to check it out, but I'm totally fired up, remember? My thought pattern was like "fuck it, I don't care how much the brakes are rubbing, I'm killing this!" so I shifted up two gears and kept drilling it... for about a half lap. Then BOOM goes the tire. Game over. At least I got another twenty minutes or so at threshold for my $5. Not sure exactly what happened, but the Bontrager tire/rim combination is not the tightest fit, so I probably broke the bead or "rolled" the clicher a little bit in the crash. Or just damaged the tire. Not sure why the delayed reaction, or maybe I just didn't notice it when I first got going again. I was bummed though, as this race had a decent field and for sure I was not finished moving up through it. Oh well. If you're keeping score, that makes three mishaps in the eight days I'd owned this bike, and we weren't even on the way to nats yet. Thanks for reading.
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