More cyclocross please!

This was a big weekend bike, friend, and family-wise. First, there was a night in St Louis without the toddler...just the wifey, myself, 2 great friends, beer, and a couple of pizzas from Pi.

I guess the point of this particular blog post is to communicate some of my opinions regarding things I like, some potential areas of excitement, and a few predictions for the coming cyclocross season.

Things I like:
1. Lots of jalepeno's on pizza
2. IPA
3. New bike parts that work really well
4. Happy, stoked, and motivated people (i.e. most of the people I conversed with at the cyclocross race before about 8pm on saturday night and all of the people on the Pedal the Cause 'training' ride saturday morning).
5. My wife's new pumpkin bread recipe.

Potential areas of excitement:
- We had 30-40 people show up for the Pedal the Cause training ride and flat clinic sponsored by Mesa on saturday morning. We took a nice mellow ride around the park and I got the opportunity to talk to some people about why they're doing the ride. One guy's wife has HPV positive head and neck cancer, which coincidentally is the area of my PhD research. It is very nice to be reminded of real life reality (dare I say suffering?) when it is so easy to be self-absorbed in esoteric molecular biology.

-I raced my bike in a race for the first time since July 15th after having taken 6 weeks completely off the bike and done almost zero hard riding. I choose to race my mountain bike in the single speed category of the Hermann Cyclocross race because it was only a 35 minute race and I just wanted to see how I felt. Somehow my mojo, seems to have not gone completely to hell and now I'm super psyched for the next 12 weeks of progression. Right now the plan is to race my cross bike as much as my health, family, and work balance can allow. My season goals are now: have fun, give the fast kids a hard time come November/December, and go to nationals in Bend and represent well. I'll definitely race collegiate as a grad student for Mizzou then probably the Master's 30-34, but maybe the B-race instead of masters.

Predictions for the coming cyclocross season in Missouri:
-Big Shark (Schottler and butthead) will be hard to beat, but there are potential challengers.
-We will learn that flat-barred 29er's can hang in most CX races
-My idea of racing on a 1x10 will constantly be a source of reconsideration.
-The following quote will hold true:

I'm psyched to learn more about these folks from the western part of the state. I have to say, they looked intimidating in their black and orange skin suits and gorgeous carbon bikes.


I'd be remiss not to mention the unfortunate situation with the storm at Hermann on Saturday night. There was serious lightening and eventual torrential rain fall. Due less to luck and more too pro-active, considerate leadership and disaster response on behalf of race organizers, park officials, public workers, and alert citizens no one was hurt (I don't really believe much in luck). Although, it sounds like there was a lot of damage to equipment and the park, I'm really glad that there were no serious injuries.