Convert Cross

You can see me hiding in the back, one of the few with no arm warmers. Seriously guys, it was at least 60 degrees...



Caution tape is for pussies. Barbed wire = no cutting the course.



SoCal CX races still have serious competitors who use mountain bikes. The stairs were insurance against anyone attempting to ride this.



If my bars look too high on this bike it's because they are.



Lake Casitas was the venue for rowing at LA84



The 45+ share the course with single speed women in CA.



With over twenty national titles already at 18 years old, Coryn Rivera is just a plain old badass bike racer.



The rideup was steep, making it a good spot to mash big gears and make up time, at least for me.

This weekend I traded a race in perhaps the least scenic venue in the country for the natural splendor of Lake Casitas in Ojai, CA. The Ventura Convert Cross would open my 2010 west coast CX tour. After arriving here late Friday night, we headed up on Saturday to assist with course setup, as Rob's Judgement Velo/Trek Bikes of Ventura club co-hosts the event with the Successful Living team. Well the normally arid Ventura county got a few days of drenching rain, making some parts of the course a muddy mess. Just doing a few test laps pulled so much muck onto my frame that at one point the wheels simply locked up. I'm serious. "Peanut butter" does not adequately describe the consistency of mud. It was more like dog shit, without the smell. Not what I'd planned on. Saturday night I cleaned up the bikes and went to town with wax and other homebrewed mud repellents for the frames and our shoes. And during the night it rained more, hard.

Sunday though, on the short drive up to Ojai the sun shown brightly. There was some snow on the peaks in the distance, but only at elevations over 5000 feet or so, and even that would disappear as the day went on. The wind was up, and things actually dried out rather quickly. We were again helping with setup and all though, so I never did get a chance to pre-ride and see how much it had changed. The 45+ was the second event of the day, at 10:30 am. There were 25 guys registered. I lined up second row, behind those who'd earned callups in the SoCal series. We had chip timing for this event, which is kind of cool, as your fastest lap time of the day gets published, neat for comparing fields. But with the course drying out, turning the sticky, velcro like mud of the morning into fast hardpack by afternoon, well, things just got faster. At least that is my story.

I did not get such a great start, getting edged off my line by a mountain biker no less. Then at the first turn onto the grass, which was wet, heavy, and uphill, I failed to execute my planned shift into the small ring. I'm a Shimano guy, but my west-coast bike is SRAM, and I did not have it down. This cost me a few spots. I think I was more than halfway back. After a minute or two of damage control, we exited the twisty grass onto the second of two fairly long sections of flat pavement, where I opened up the four-barrel and moved ahead. But then we 180'd onto some grass where, having not pre-ridden, I plowed myself into the deepest, wettest mud, well over the tops of the rims. Not exactly graceful, and surely burning more fuel than I'd have liked, I plodded along. At the muddy plunge into the the 180 and the stairs, where my wheels had stopped turning the day prior, I pre-dismounted and ran in order to protect the bike. It was pretty fast, but the mud had been dried and tamped to the point where riding the downhill and 180 was clearly more economical, if not a time saver as well, so I did that for the remaining laps.

The second lap went better. At this point I was still fairly close to the top five, but some guy rallied by me and rode away. The third lap was tough for me, but by then I'd figured out some good lines and had an excellent rhythm on the flowy course. Which was a good thing, as by now it was time trial time. The only company I had was lap traffic, both 55+ riders and single speeders, who just ride weird. I thought some of them were just warming up, as they ride slowly to rest for the difficult sections, where the have to ride super hard and fast in order to keep the gear rolling. Whatever. I'm passing, so if I'm in your way a second later, too bad. My grandparents did not brave the U-Boats and the icy Atlantic so that I could ride around in one gear at 40 rpm. They wanted a better life for me, with STI and a 27 cog out back. Thanks Grammy!

At the finish it turns out I was 8th, 1:37 down on winner Edwin Rambuski. So about a third of the way down in the field, same as at home. I'd been hoping for better on this course as it was pure power all the time, very heavy, perfect for me really. Without the first lap mistakes, and maybe a better warmup it could have happened. Did a cooldown ride out and back on Casitas Pass, then had lots of fun the rest of the day, many, many dogs at this race, but no beer. We stayed until the bitter end and did course teardown. Saw a Cyclocrossracing.com kit, sure enough it was Rob Kramer (he and Rosalie had four dogs with them) and we are set to do a ride down the coast on Friday. Maybe I'll have more pictures for another post. Thanks for reading.