Saturday morning involved a somewhat spirited run down to the river to the U.S. Gran Prix Cyclocross race for a quick view. I had to stick an early ride in since later I was to drive the teenie-bopper down to the State Cross Country race, which we did (and Manual runner Cassidy Hale with the 3A win!!). It was another nice, tough ride on the Crosscheck, which as become the "bike to abuse, but faster than the LHT, which is also abused".
This morning I plotted a two-tiered attack, scheduled around church choir practice. We're now in preparation stage for the Christmas Concert, so I'm taking one for the team and going to 9-10 Sunday morning practice. Today, that meant I was up early and off to see LithoDale race the Cat4 starting bright and early at 8.00. I stayed for the whole race and gave my best effort to yell at Dale when I could Below are a few of the pics I took at Eva Bandman.
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| Odd how the Fall colors of the ground correspond with the Fall colors on this trashed cup. |
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| Run-Up!! Hup Hup!! |
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| Juxtaposition of the "classic" Bleriot in front of the very flashy, modern 'cross support vehicles. |
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| Teenage leader of the Cat4 race bunny hopping the barrier. All the kids are doing it. He flubbed a run-up in the last minute of the race and took second. He's fifteen or something like that. |
Stage Two was me high-tailing back to church to catch practice. I did stop near the race site and took a few pics of Beargrass Creek.
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| I tried to catch a cool image of the race on the bridge and its reflection. Didn't quite work. |
After practice, the third stage began with me meeting Dave at Sunergos for a cup before our ride. He was coming off a big 100K Populaire yesterday, but I was looking for mileage. It soon became apparent that such a goal was not to be. We were buffeted with 20-30mph winds out of the S and SW, the direction we attacked on the way out. It was quickly obvious that I didn't have much uumph, and Dave was happy to oblige with a moderate pace while recovering. As the ride towards Iroquois went on, I felt more and more like crap. We bagged earlier notions of heading out into Jefferson Forest for more substantial mileage and instead toured around Iroquois Park a bit. As ever, I love the top of that park. Dave has ridden with me enough to know of my proclivity for grassy fields.
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| Bleriot against a very different background that at the 'cross race. |
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