Better late than never. After getting all opened up at the 5k on Saturday, I even got out for a nice road ride that afternoon, surprisingly finding myself with time trial legs. Shut it down at 90 minutes rather than letting myself get carried away in the nice weather. Sunday I made the pilgrimage to Putney, taking the 128/2 route. On 91 north I had a flashback to my first trip to the Tour of the Valleys, which was in May of 1987 I think. It was a foggy morning, and as far as the eye could see (which wasn't very far), every car had a roof rack full of bikes. That was probably my first time witnessing a convergence of hundreds of bike racers on a location, the same location I was headed to today, the West Hill Shop off exit 4. The TotV, or simply Putney, was perhaps the original New Engand classic and arguably the best road race of its time. Nobody skipped it. One big loop. And no longer with us of course. I must have blogged about it before. More on this later.
The cx race has been around for a while too, long enough for G-Ride and Rooter and everyone else to talk about it as being "old school New England cross." For the record, the oldest courses were Plymouth North High, Wompatuck, Mansfield Hollow, Putney, Mt A, the Plymouth intermediate school, Pittsfield, and a couple of other central CT locations whose names escape me. The original "Cycle Smart" was at horse field next to some UMass dorms, but that did not come along until 89 or so. They are calling Putney 20th annual so I guess maybe it was not as old as Wompatuck and Plymouth. And though it started out at the shop on basically the same course we use now, for a time it re-located up to the top of West Hill Road itself, across from the Putney school. I think they may have done that because the original course was considered to "old school" at the time...
So exactly what makes an "old school New England" cross course? Jerry seems to think they were not "roadie" like he found Putney. That one makes me laugh. Who do you think cyclocross was started by anyway? Or mountain biking for that matter. In those days, if you raced bikes, no matter what kind, you raced road. Nobody had got a mountain bike as their first bike. So there. But it's not like the newer Verge series grass autobahns aren't better race courses. Ironically, one of the Putney elements G-Ride complained about, the "flow killer" set of barriers back in the cornfield, are one of the attributes the old course all had: a dismount every minute or two. Combine that with a few sections narrow enough to bottleneck any field of over thirty riders, some crude non-lumber hurdles, and throw it a runup steep enough that you need to use your hands to scale it and you have all the elements of a back-in-the-day New England cross course. I used to get so aggravated that course designers (including the still famous one) used to be like "we need a barrier here" if any section making up more that 20% of the course length could be ridden without dismounting. I called it the "sundial method." You see, mountain bike clipless pedals had not yet been invented, and dismounting/remounting was a very important and difficult to learn skill, giving huge reason for the old guard who generally promoted races (designing or consulting for course builders) to throw in lots of dismounting.
I got to the race early, riding a few test laps with the Cronoman before the first race started. Pretty much the same layout as always, although the "slippery slope" (lot of quotes today eh?) ain't nearly what it used to be. Not sure if they've cut it down or if it's just naturally been flattened by soil washing it's way down, but it's pretty tame these days. There was a time when it was a vertical plunge into a giant mudhole. At least that's how I remembered it. The cornfield though, that has not changed at all, nor the road or the big-assed runup. We skipped that in warmup. I have a theory that hitting the courses for a hard pre-rde is a BAD idea for an old dude like me. I need some kind and gentle spinning before that kind of work.
I had a PRO parking spot near the portos. Man it stunk. You guys need to change up your diets a little. Then Eyebob came by with some contact lenses for me to try. Buck was impressed that I retained an eye doctor just for installing race day vision. This was my first time ever wearing contacts. I'd even bought some new landscaper protective glasses at the Depot the night before, just for the occasion (saw my man Pimpin' Fred for the first time in 33 years too, but that's another story). With eyesight restored, I got on the trainer to finish my warmup, with parked next car Dick Ring giving me intel on how the earlier races were affecting the course. I got into my warmup a bit too much though, forgetting that there were not callups at this race, and that we'd be using the "old school" method of hanging out near the start for an eternity before the race if we wanted to be near the front.
Hey you know what? My flight is almost boarding. I will finish this later. Thanks for reading.
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