Tuesday Night Cross

Cut my teeth last night on some cross racing. Must say I am hooked. Just super fun feeling like you're going to puke while riding.

The Tuesday races are held out at the Austin Del Valle Motocross track. Decided to ride out there even though its about 20 miles from my house. Pretty cool ride and just took it nice and slow. Ended up getting lost on the way, but finally figured it out. Was afraid I was going to miss it for a while.

Probably just under 20 people in the A/B race. Lots of loose dirt in the turns and one log crossing before a sandy burm and a mandatory run up on a steep table top. Was really suprised at how smooth my dismounts and mounts were since I haven't spent too much time practicing them. The log one was cool and I was actually mounting on the top of the burm or at least the on the backside. Since you were above the bike seemed like it made it easy to remount.

Figuring it was my first race and i was running a fixed gear feel like 5th place wasn't too bad. Had 2 crashes, one in a turn when my peddle struck the ground and the second on the runup when one of my feet didn't come unclipped and started going up behind my back. The field was pretty wide open. the 1st place was on a mtn bike and just hammered. due to the loose conditions a mtn bike was probably ideal and allowed for faster cornering. he also was cheating since he rode the runup and at the start of the race the riders decided it should be a mandatory runup. The guy was super fast, a collegiate race, and it probably didn't matter, but why cheat in this little local race? Sounds like we are going to have some real barriers next week and some barriers placed in succession. He was so fast and lapped me in the last 100 yards and almost lapped 4th and 3rd place. 3rd and 4th finished a bit ahead of me and there was another gap between 3rd and 2nd. There was also a pretty sizable gap between me and 6th. Anyway definately stoked on how it turned out. Also didn't hear their pussy little bell to signal last lap. My last three laps I eased up a bit because I wasn't worried about the gap between me and those behind, but didn't want to blow up before the last lap. So my last lap was actually a bit easy. Not saying I would have been able to catch the 4th guy, but at least I would have been trying to instead of just maintaining my position. I also might have been able to keep from getting lapped too. So after the 1st race i have some points for the series, which is cool, but i probably won't be able to race the entire series due to work demands.

Rey had a great showing too. Some chain problems, but likely finished 7th or 8th even though they had him at 11th. Looked like they missed him on one of the laps since they had him doing one less than me, which is bullshit since I never lapped him. took it well though with a who cares attitude.

Our women were out to chear us on. Definatley picked me up when I passed them each lap. The dogs were stoked on the racing, too. Rango was just wondering why he couldn't race.