I find sometimes it's easy to be myself

So, for all intensive purposes, this was not actually a cyclocross race. It was instead, race #14 in the New England Mountain Bike Championship Series. The fact that I raced it on a ‘cross bike however, earns it a place under this cyclocross section.. The Farmington course at Winding Trails has always been ranked high on my list of personal favorites. It’s XC ski trails and duel slalom like single track stretches warrant it a special place in my heart. After a 40 minute warm up, including one 25 minute race pace lap of the course, the gun was off and the elbow throwing underway. We had a large group that immediately strung out into a mountain bikers attempt at a pace line. Surprisingly, no one proved moronic enough to try and break clear right at the start of this very fast and tactical course. (i.e., Dave Scherp: 2005) I started very mellow, and did my best to convince the group the first lap was supposed to be neutral. No one bought it, but I heard some panting voices in the back seconding my idea. I moved up to third wheel coming into the first off camber descent to do my best to try and block those on actual mountain bikes from creating too much of a separation. A quick shoot back up some slick roots and things opened up to a wide stretch of fire road. I got in the drops and picked up the watts to test the waters a little and see who was really here to race. I held the tempo pretty high for the next 3k before sitting up and waiting for some company to draft on for a while. 2 guys came up soon after, and after playing the, “no, really, you lead. I insist” game for a while, I finally coaxed one of them to take to the front. I was content to sit on until the last big climb of the lap which is followed by a steep and possible run up before funneling us back down to the finish area. Attacking up the climb created an initial separation, which held at five meters for the last K of the lap. Not doing any real damage, but eliminating the followers drafting advantage. It stayed close like this until the feed zone climb after the finish line, where rider “X” attacked like a lion who had just caught a glimpse of a wildebeest. After quickly bridging back up, Rider “X” proceeded to curse himself out for attacking right through the feed zone and forgetting to take a bottle. I sat on his wheel for the next 3/4th’s of lap two; suffering to hold on through the single track and rough stuff while doing my best to work my ‘cross bike advantage on the fire roads. This was all working fine until the familiar feeling of spinning you're legs as the bike goes no were. “you have got to be kidding me” I thought as I looked down to find a chain, off the front and into the wheel in the rear. After a few manly grunts and some on the spot leverage calculating, I had things set back up, but they would never be the same. The cables where to stretched and the chain line would never be right the rest of the day. Leaving me with just a 39/22 for a granny gear. Hakuna Matata thought, that’s what this race was all about: cyclocross practice. It was a good opportunity to put all the running I’ve been doing to good use. I preceded to push it on the flats, despite the building aching in my back resulting from the bike choice, and ran all the climbs and single track. This stayed the same for the last 2 laps and I rolled it into the finish to make for a good day of training and a shinny spot on the podium, where I promptly collected my cash and trotted off to the near by subway for a 12 in. tomato sandwich. Off to NY next weekend for the real deal. More on that later.