New Year Ride

I did manage to get outside for a very very brief ride yesterday between feeding the girls and sunset.

I just jumped on the Blue and hit my course for three laps, two close to race pace, then did a couple laps over on the one Curtis laid out, one of those as full speed.

I was riding at the edge of control and it was fast, and it felt awesome. Lines that i'd had trouble with by design seemed easy yesterday. There was a synergy I felt on the bike, and with the course. Sure it probably has something to do with the fact that I laid it out and have ridden a couple dozen laps over a week or so. I added a new wrinkle yesterday that I liked. Always riding it with the thought, what would I do to make it harder, longer. Where would the stakes and tape go. I like riding like that. The last lap was a slower one, thinking about placement, and the one off camber drop in section seemed ridiculously smooth and fun.  Thoughts of the different courses were bouncing in my head.  What makes some better than others, more fun, harder.  Watching a lot of the euro CX this week was different than normal.  No "why can't we have courses like that here."  More of a "How could we tweak out courses to be harder and more physically demanding?"  I do think Colin has a solid handle on it.  Most of the turns on his course are greater than or equal to 90° (or all acute angles if you measure the inside turn angle).

Look at the nationals course map that was published some time ago.  All sweeping wide open turns, seems to be like a 22psi file tread course where you just put it in the big ring, disconnect the brakes and go as hard as you can.  Compared to what it could be and the land they seem to have (from the overhead shot) I would expect more of a Bend course or something.  Even Catamount has some good challenging turns you can't take a full speed.  Plenty that you can though.

Weather is nothing anyone can control and is a huge factor.  If Belgium had been rain free for the last two or three weeks the courses would have looked very different.  Bit it rained.  And they chewed the hell out of the course and it made for incredible racing.  Well until everyone got sick and Sven showed why he is Wonder Boy.

I set out on the ride yesterday because I was not maybe feeling as chipper as I could be.  It was 55°F mid-day but I wasn't riding, and by the time it was time to head out the thermocouple was saying it 49°F and falling.  And the sun had disappeared behind the clouds.

Riding fixes everything, right?

No, plenty of stuff it doesn't fix of course.

But the ride kind of made it all worse in way. Everything was perfect on the bike.  But the ride can't last forever.  It had to end.  Much like the cyclocross season.  And right now there really isn't anything on the horizon that is taking the place of it.  That kind of bums me out...

And yes... the horizon in the images are not level, just tilt your head.

heddwch
G