Men's 4/5 cross race, 16 of either 38 or 40. List was pretty long. Just wanted to see I was in upper half to upper 1/3. Progress.
Done in by the call-ups again. Behind some guys who just didn't gas it at the start. I made a few spots up early but decided to TT it instead of burn too many sprint matches. It worked better, better finish spot. I did recover a bit drafting a guy for a bit then went by. I made a bad error though that cost me catching a group of 5 guys 100 yards up. I lost my lap count and thought I had longer to go. So, last lap was not a bazillion % effort. Womp womp.
So, back to ferret's cross thing about A/B/C working well. I could see that Sunday. The winners were easily way ahead. Shoot couple of the 4/5 winners were bunny hopping barriers like second nature. Also, one of the guys doing super well in 4/5 routinely I heard a few guys giving a hard time at the start because he's on a pretty nice MTB for cross. I didn't care, if it's fair game so be it. I do think though as courtesy if you're close or winning podiums in your races, I think it's time you get a cross bike. I run 32's out of budget right now to not carry extra kit at home, but seeing some the tire I saw among the front folks I'm wondering now "well ****, why not me too".
Shoot, it felt like 75% plus of the the entire place was disc brakes too.
I'm just learning to think like when I competed in elite junior golf tournaments..........you won't win, just get some finishes in.......and get lucky and scare some folks for top 10 once in a while.
I try not to think about how many seconds per lap disc brakes and having several more mm's of tire would save.
But, still, big improvement from race
#1 . I need to get a call-up though so I can ride in a group with the front runners for once.
Still fun, I'll do some more. I'll consider modest kit updates like going TL on my spare wheelset and bigger tire.