Our very own by Natalia Gardiol went and represented at Nationals this year- here is her wicked race report! Enjoy!!
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Cyclocross Nationals, Dec 10-13, 2009
Bend, OR
While most New England ‘crossers entertaining the trip out to Bend this year started planning months in advance…I wavered. I started out the season in the Women’s 3/4 and made the move to Elites only halfway through the season, so my initial enthusiasm circa October (when I was winning races) rapidly tempered into fiscal prudence somewhere around November (when I had to ride my legs off just not to finish last)…
But, the draw of Bend was strong, reason notwithstanding. Who knew what might happen next year– if I might manage to recover this hard-won level of meager fitness, or if I might even still be in the country at all. With all that we hear about cyclocross in Oregon, the thought that I might be missing my last chance began to take on a haunting quality. So, with two weeks to go, I decided to pull the trigger.
Naturally, this decision let loose a mad scramble of logistics.
Chip Baker of HUP came through in a huge way by lending me his Record/Reflex wheels with Dugast Rhinos, which promised to be more apt for the expected mud than the Grifos I’d been racing all season.
My secret weapon, Jim Wirtanen of Pinnacle Bikes (aka cyclocrossworld.com), pulled off the speediest, thorough-est, most maximally PRO tune-up and packing job to have my bike overnighted to the bike shop in Bend the Monday after NBX.
Jeremy Dunn of Embrocation Cycling Journal and Dave Roth of HUP generously let me stay in the huge, happenin’, HUP Haus along with Dan Langlois, Kirt Fitzpatrick, a solid Saturday night crew, and surreptitious visits by Adam and Janice, which made the trek worthwhile in and of itself.
On the menu: two races. The Masters’ 30-34 on Friday, and the Elite race on Sunday.
Thanks to my heroic coach Al Donahue, I’d gotten the PRO tip from Jeremy Powers a couple of days before departure: rather than do openers on arrival, you’re best off to do a ride as close as possible _before_ the flight. That way, all you have to worry about when you arrive is stuffing your face and propping your legs up the wall.
Unfortunately, due to work, I’d had to book my trip for Thursday with an 8am departure out of Boston and a evening arrival at the airport in Redmond, 16 miles north of Bend. Twelve hours of travel, and openers of any sort seemed unlikely. I would advise anyone to consider not arranging their trip in exactly this way next year.
The good part was that a 2:15pm start time meant a 9am shakeout ride was actually feasible. It wasn’t even as cold as everyone had been moaning about all week. After some cowboy coffee and breakfast, we were ready to hit the venue at noon for the open pre-ride hour. I think everyone and their brother had the same idea, as there were so many bodies on course that it was almost impossible to move.
Nonetheless, the more laps I got in, the easier it became to appreciate the tastiness of what the course designers had laid out for us. It was a short, technical course to be sure, but fast– the layer of mud forming over the tundra teamed up with the incessant off-camber chutes and hairpins to make the penalty for error rather high. Thank god for the Rhinos…this was going to be awesome.
I gridded up third row, somewhere in the middle of about 60 starters. Other than the big names and the few New England friends I recognized, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the race. When the gun went off, I sprinted for all I was worth, knowing it would be a tall order to pass once we got to the dirt.
Coming into the hole shot, I hear, “you’re in tenth”….tenth! Simultaneously elated and terrified….surely this won’t last. The slickness of the course was wreaking havoc all around….I lost a few battles in the war to stay upright, giving up a place here and there, but nothing too major. I’m going to just gloss over the slip and fall coming into the stairs, and maybe the trip and fall over the barriers. Not like anyone was watching or anything, especially not a tall guy in a orange jumpsuit who seemed to be cheering at every inopportune moment (I’m looking at you, GeWilli!).
With just over one lap to go (of 6!!), I recognized Amy Breyla from the C3 team, and resolved to try and stick with her group. Going into the gravel/asphalt/gravel transition later made famous by Adam Myerson’s crash, she went down hard ahead of me. In fact, I think a rider went down in front of me almost every time through that spot. Scary.
Not knowing what was going on behind me, I decided it was worth trying to carry some momentum into the run up, which had been wholly rideable if one was careful. A fatal decision. I went into the corner with slightly too much gusto for what the re-freezing ruts could support and felt my wheels vanish from under me, dumping me tailbone first onto the greasy permafrost. The wind was knocked right out and I crouched there, stunned.
Rider after rider passed me by. It killed me to think I might have to DNF. After what seemed like an eternity, a kindly spectator helped me pick my bike up off the ground, and I tried to imagine standing up. All right, all right…legs still move. Feeling infinitely, impossibly slow, I pushed the bike up the run up and did my best to pedal after the remount. Apparently, there had been a decent gap behind the group that I had been riding with, because I don’t recall losing any more places after that. Given that I was probably averaging about 10 watts for the whole last lap, this is something of a miracle. Amazingly, that was good enough to hang on to 19th place.
A dunk in the hot tub and some tacos back at the Haus served to distract me from the fact that my right glute was becoming almost entirely seized. Good thing I had a recovery day the next day…surely that would fix it.
We headed out to ride the course again on Saturday at noon, hearing that they’d made some changes to lengthen the lap. The addition consisted of a bumpy, rocky, greasy off-camber descent off the crest of the run up, replacing the quick 180 back down that had been there the day before. This nefarious stretch added maybe 30 seconds to the lap, but it increased the catastrophe factor significantly.
It took me a couple tries to successfully ride it, and even then I was sure I hadn’t figured it out. I went home with gouges out of my left hip and elbow…a consequence of a touch on the brakes and the ensuing ten-foot slide. Did I mention those “rocks” were sharp, nasty shards of lava? Forget about brakes; the only way to go down this thing was to loosen up and let it roll. Oh yeah, and then brake like hell in time to make the acute right turn at the bottom. At least that part was bermed…slightly. So much for recovery.
That night, we ventured into Bend for some food, and afterward proceeded to waste 45 minutes trying to find the Deschutes brewery warehouse (it was at the race venue. Obviously.) and the purported party within. We had dawdled at the door not five minutes before the number of people waiting to get in went from three to thirty, to sixty. Curiosity won out, and we made a dive for the door and gave our $5 donation to trail maintenance. Inside, the DJ was into it, the colored lights were going crazy, and the extensive beer bar seemed promising…until we realized they were charging for drinks. So while I’ve heard wild tales of some creative dance “openers” that ensued after the Clydesdale championships, we peaced out and headed back home for some respite.
Now, for some reason, the Elite women’s race was scheduled for 11:15 the next morning, with only a half-hour of pre-ride scheduled before it. This meant that I and Abby Jenkins, a new Embrocation rider based out of Portland, made a brave (painful) pact to get up for the 7:30am open course time.
Pinning my number 100 on the night before, it crossed my mind to wonder if they were really starting the series from the number one. The answer was yes. By the time they called me up (everyone was called up by name, one-by-one, by a poor official who had been incomprehensibly denied a megaphone), there were almost one hundred riders in front of me, and I was starting in the last row. When the gun went off, nobody around me moved. Not a one.
I don’t think I’ve ever started a race so slowly. For the 80% of the first lap, there was nothing to do but try to avoid plowing into the rider in front. If I hadn’t been so sore and incapacitated, it might have been frustrating.
When it thinned out into a single line coming in to the run-up towards the end of the first lap, I figured I could make up some spots by taking a lower line on the descent that I’d been practicing in the morning. All was going well, until I forgot it wasn’t 7am and the melting frost meant I wasn’t supposed to touch my brakes. One painful slide and the first holes in my kit (in two years!) later, I realized I was in no condition to keep up this “trying” thing. Given that I could barely coax pastry-ride wattage out of my legs, I decided to just ride and enjoy. In the elite race. At nationals. On a 6.5-minute course with Katie Compton coming at you. You know when you are deciding to have “fun” during a cross race, you are doing it wrong. But a DNF seemed more wrong….so as the saying goes, HTFU, princess.
After that point, I began to look around. There were crowds of people out lining the course almost the entire way around, cheering, even though I was mighty sure I was riding DFL. It was a bluebird day, and the drum corps was a force of primal beauty every time through the barriers. Dave Chiu and GeWilli were unflagging in their encouragement. With no one around to make me nervous, I railed that infuriating descent every single lap. Easy. I played with taking the the hairpins as moto as I could. It works!
Oddly enough, I never noticed Katie Compton pass me. With 1.5 laps to go, Meredith Miller came by, then Amy Dombroski. I paused in the start/finish area and asked if I should stop racing. Right? I’ve been lapped. No, they said; keep going! Keep going?! Eventually the rest of the top eight came through, and I managed to get in Mo’s way the last time down the descent of doom, which I’m really sorry about. I had thought somebody was trying to duke it out with me for second-to-last place…but it wasn’t exactly easy to look over your shoulder on that part, unfortunately.
In the end, I finished 80th, hardly awesome. But it does mean I made up 20 places from my starting position. (Actually, it was 73rd according to the preliminary timing chip results, but not the official results. So I’m still confused about what they were for, in that case.) The absolute cherry on top, though, was crossing the finish line and being greeted by a Shimano/Pro worker handing out warm, damp hand-towels with which to clean off. And then the fabulous Matt Talbot, who was working the pit for the S. Camels, took my bike and washed it for me. That’s the business. I guess this is how it rolls when you officially hit the big time! CB even got some photo time on Belgium Knee Warmers.
Later that night, we went to the after-party at a bar whose name I can’t remember, made up some dance moves that I’d rather not remember, and generally celebrated the close of the season in the best way a crowd of bike racers can manage.
Headed back to Portland in the Rapha van the next day, Dave R treated us to some of the most arresting landscapes I’ve ever seen. High desert, plateaus, mountains, river gorges…that had me staring out the window in a trance for three straight hours.
With Christopher Igleheart coincidentally in town for his sister’s birthday, we couldn’t have asked for a better ending to the journey.
Season 2009 was one for the record books. To all the friends, old and new, that made it so great, I offer my humblest, deepest gratitude. You guys are the best.
Pretty awesome!