This ended up being a wet one and I was not prepared!
I had spent the week before this race in Japan for work, and had been off the bike the whole week. I had managed a few runs (including some hill reps up to a castle which was pretty cool), but my legs were very stiff and heavy from the flight the day before the race. Flying back into the country the day before the race also didn’t leave much time to make any changes to the bike.
The forecast for race day was mixed at best, but it looked like the rain might hold off. I wanted to try and test the limits of the intermediate tyres having not had a chance to run them before this year. I certainly found their limits with the slippery California Park course!
Gav, Liam and I rode out to California Park together in fairly nice weather, but as we got further up the valley it was obvious that California Park was right on the edge of some fairly large clouds. Liam asked me whether my tyres would work for the course and I confidently told him that if it stayed as it was they would be good.
As B grade got underway the heavens opened, and it pissed it down for most of B grade. It was not going to be good for my tyres. I was glad I wasn’t racing B grade in the rain, but by the time we got to the course it was a sloppy mess. The rain did stop and we weren’t so cold and miserable in A grade, but any hope of grip was gone.
Nevertheless, the course was great: some fun off-camber on the Wellington Fault scarp, and a good bank to try to ride up along with some nice linking sections all made for an enjoyable course. The rain made some of the off-camber sections pretty unrideable. One of the nuances of the parks that we use for Huttcross is that they have a fairly thin clay-rich soil layer over river gravels. This means that the top surface gets really slippery when wet (thanks to the clay), but ruts don’t form and you can’t really dig in with your feet for running. The clay-rich soil also tends to stick pretty well and the combination of sticky mud and gravel at some courses has led to the death of many derailleurs over the years.
I again lined up on the front row having had a good warm up. I got a good start and led into the first corner, but I felt like I was riding on ice through the first two turns, despite the 19psi I had in my tyres. I quickly lost the lead position to people on mud tyres and did my best to hold on. The lack of grip cost me both in cornering speed and in power-delivery when trying to get back up to speed after the corners as I was wheel-spinning out of almost every turn. I wasn’t alone though and everyone, even those on muds were struggling.
Ari Scott ended up in the lead with Jim following. I was just in front of Liamin third for a while until I made a mistake on the long off-camber section and got tangled in the tape. While I was getting my bike free Liam came past me and I spent the rest of the race chasing him. I never managed to quite catch him and the banner image for this page is a great photo of Ari (right), Liam (left) and me just behind Ari on the final lap in a close slow-motion battle for second.
I felt like I was managing to close the gap to Liam and the leaders slightly on the longer straighter sections where I could deliver consistent power, and was trying to capitalise on those parts of the course. Unfortunately I was losing as much or more time on the rest of the technical sections where I was having to run more of the off camber, and run the short climb most laps just because I couldn’t grip. It was frustrating, but that’s ‘cross, especially when you pick the wrong tyres!
On the penultimate lap disaster struck the leader Ari, who had been clear for the whole race, when his chain came off. At that point Jim, Liam and I all came past him. He managed to get the chain back on just as I passed him and he quickly stomped around me and Liam, but he didn’t quite make it back to Jim. In the end the four of us were separated at the finish by only a few seconds.
All in all, I came away a little disappointed, but I learnt the limits of the intermediates, and had a good reminder of the fun of the off cambers in the Hutt!
On to Round 3!
Banner photo: ATPhoto