CHILLER CROSS 2012 VIDEO

Here's a vid from yesterday's Masters B race. Fun, muddy, wet, mucky day full of falls and mechanicals.

BELLINGHAM CYCLOCROSS RIDE

Yesterday, the excellent Glenn Gervais invited me on a lunchtime CX ride with some of his co-workers from Logos Bible Software. Beautiful ride on a beautiful day. (For Jan 12, that is: about 38 to 40 degrees, some sun, no wind.) Our route: south through Fairhaven, across Taylor Dock, the back trails at Padden, a traverse of Lower Galby and down the pipeline, Whatcom Falls Park and back to downtown. Enjoy the vid!

BELLY CROSS CORNWALL PARK

Great morning at Cornwall Park: the return of Belly Cross, a Mark Peterson produced cyclocross race through the forests of open fields of Bellingham's oldest park. Above, the start of Class C race, wherein we took off LeMans style--run around the crazed maniac in the skull mask and yellow wig, then hop on our bikes and get going. I was in the Master C category but more on that later.

More interestingly, Baker jumped into the Youth race and won it! Below is the podium, as it were, from left to right, first, third and second. The second-place kid is named Liam, but I've no idea what the middle kid's name is. (Sorry.) Kind of funny, right before his race, Mark asked me if I would ride ahead of the kids to show them the course. I really wanted to watch Bake race so I almost said no, but since he was in first or second the whole time, I got to watch his whole race unfold. Below, that's me in orange vest with Bake just behind. I really had to push it to stay ahead of these guys. Bake and the two others broke away from everyone pretty quick, with Bake and Liam going back and forth for the lead. It was thrilling. At one point, Liam bounced off a rock and hit one of them big, hard, green things that are real tall--a tree, I think they're called--and Bake got ahead to stay. (Liam was OK.) Below, Bake crosses the finish. That's gotta feel good. As I said, I did the C race, Masters C for dudes in their 40s and above. Right off the bat, I got tangled in the tape and one of the gates. Konked on the head too as riders zoomed by. Kind of set me back quite a bit. I made back some ground but for much of the race I was in no man's land by myself. Still had a great fun.

Check out my spiffy shirt and socks.

Finally met Dessa of Dessa's Days, a Seattle cyclist's blog I check often. Nice guy. I think he finished fourth.

CYCLOCROSS ADVENTURES

Check out the latest issue of Adventures NW magazine (http://www.adventuresnw.com/) which has my story about CX'ploring, exploring the trails and roads around Bellingham by cyclocross bike. Extree cool--that's my cover shot of Mark Peterson and Ryan Rickerts, a couple of local 'cross race promoters. Go to http://www.cyclocrazed.com/ for the latest info on their new race series.

END OF YEAR RIDE

Went 'cross bike riding with Mark Peterson, athlete and sponship dude at Kona, and Ryan Rickerts, of http://www.cyclocrazed.com/ fame the other day. Strong guys both who thankfully waited up for me at various and sundry points. I'm writing a story for The Seattle http://www.seattletimes/ about such 'cross-type riding behavior; it should run next Thursday, the 10th.
There's Ryan giving me the Lance look. (Cheeky bastard.) We started at Mark's house where, after enjoying one of those mini cups of some amazingly rich espresso, we headed up the Pipeline Trail on Galbraith. See the snow in the distance (above); see it in my back wheel below?
Probably six or eight inches of snow once we hit where the road/trail flattens out, then we headed down the upper trails just east of Lake Padden. (That's the top photo.) From there we dropped down into Fairhaven and took various greenways back. Just about two hours riding in all.
Sunday, I went running with the Chuckanut 50K group from the Vet hospital. About an hour into it, as I was having a jolly time running with Mr. Clark and Mr. Scott, it just kinda hit me: I don't feel like training for this race. Even if it's the last time ever for this course, I just can't seem to get motivated for the long, long hours of running in the mud every Sunday until raceday in the middle of March. And for a race that long and painful, I need to be mucho motivated. (Still ended up running 2 hours 45 minutes with a couple thousand feet elevation gain.)

Went home, took out the 'cross bike and rode about an hour and 15. That was fun.