They have bourbon, we'll have beer.

CX Worlds Viewing Party is a go - AND - at a reasonable time of day! 

The fine folks at Wynkoop Brewery have offered up the Mercantile Room for our Worlds watching pleasure. The setup will be similar to last year when we hosted U.S. Nationals at Wynkoop.

Here is the schedule for the day.

9:00 am: Women’s Cyclocross World Championships. The bar isn't open at that time, so...bummer. You’re on your own. We are looking at another option for watching just this race at a nearby bike shop. Stay tuned.  - News Flash -  Jinji Cycles will be opening early for the Vos vs KFC showdown, all are welcome. 

10:45 am: Meet at Wynkoop, ride to Bandido. If you would rather meet us at the park, the location is close, north of Wynkoop on 20th, stop when you see cross bikes. 

11ish am: Bandito Worlds. Go Time! We will be doing roughly 4-6 laps on a 1.5 mile course with run-ups, grass, stairs, yada yada yada its cross.  Cheating not discouraged so sharpen your elbows and bring your antler spray.

12:30 pm: Men’s Elite Cyclocross World Championships at Wynkoop. The room will be ready to go around noon.

Some minor notes for the day.

• If you have questions, hit us up here or on the feed @fritesenmayo.
• Parking is free on Sundays downtown.
• It is a pay your own bill thing at Wynkoop.
• The race is about fun so no skinsuits, heart rate monitors, call-ups or timing chips.
• This is just another opportunity to hang with folks that love cross just as much as we do. 

Here's a preview of the Worlds course.

Here's a map of Bandido Worlds with a rough estimate of the course.

Adrenalin CX

A baby seal walks into a club and says, "Ow."

My CX training and racing so far has been severely hampered by Pampers. Ha ha. Meaning, I have a new born son in my life. The kid is awesome, so much fun and…I’m not at all tired from lack of sleep /s. Don’t EVER let your wife hear you say you’re tired. Here’s why - when you’re snoozing away at 3AM and she’s up feeding your little bundle of joy she wants to punch you in the face. Nothing against your face, but it’s closer than your balls. I penciled (nothing in stone w/kids) Adrenalin CX as a must do early season race keeping to the Team tradition of supporting non-Bubble events. Before the race the good folks at Team Adrenalin released a course map and description of the venue. I love when they do this. It gives me an opportunity to practice/train specifics and pre-ride. Most noteworthy in there narrative was “long run-up” and I practiced accordingly – go fast, jump off bike, run, jump on bike, “nutter? no”, smile, repeat. An aside: having a kid means I’m supposed to be faster! Watch out.

Game day 
I got an excellent call-up. I was fully expecting to start at the back, but because of new rules brought from Borg assimilation I got was called quickly. If you haven’t noticed, call-up rankings have changed significantly under Borg rule:

• The rankings are based on your BEST five results over the past year. If you ate dirt, raced sick, wife had a baby it won't be counted against you.
• Mid-week racing doesn't count in the new system. When Crossresults.com managed rankings B2B races were included.
• Racing up a category doesn't help unless you beat racers ranked ahead of you or do better than a race in your top 5.
• Racking up Cross Cup points in the hinterlands hoping to better your call-up is a thing of the past. This is unfortunate because non-bubble races become less attractive to some. The reason is quality points given to a race are based on the top five racers in the event. (confused yet?)

Because I had one good race at the end of last year I was sitting pretty in the second row. Unfortunately, I squandered my position quickly and although in the top ten on lap two, I went backwards forthwith. Crashing several times didn't help, but not crashing wouldn't have hurt (double entendre!?) my result. Overall the course was cool with long flat stretches (but not too long), bunny-hops, kickers, grass, sand and so forth – a real mixed bag of tricks. What sucked (for me) were stretches of bumps and a sharp turn to a run-up with barriers. These barriers wouldn't normally be a problem as it’s not my first rodeo. Anyways, I crashed twice at these barriers after specifically practicing my-uh-run-ups. First tearing a tendon in my thumb making my last three laps…interesting, second provoking thoughts of baby seals….

First lap: Baby seals. Aren't we cute? 

Said barriers: Here’s how it’s done son. 

“Hey look, a baby seal, get ‘em” 

Teammates watched, entertained and concerned. 

Post-race laughs enjoyed at my expense. 

Overall this was a great race put on by Team Adrenalin, DBC et al. They nailed the course design, expo, timing, etc. Maximum fun. Can’t wait to do this again. 

Pictures courtesy of Pedaldancer.com.

(Disclaimer: no actual baby seals were harmed; this happens.)

1/4 of the season done

So the cracker jack staff here at FMVC service course has now gotten through the first month of the cross season.  Needless to say, it's been to damn hot to race so we dont really have alot to talk about in the form of race coverage.

The Kick It TT race was a pretty good time.  When this "idea" was thrown around it had great potential.  But the technical committee at the ACA decieded to "neuter it" and it was more a good time that a real race.  It should be noted though, everyone had a great time, there was free beer, a frites truck and lots of laughs. 

The next day some of the kids went up to Valmont and raced.  This is usually breaking first rule of our team but we understand the mafia style politics of cross now.  The ACA rolled over and gave the boys from the bubble 7 racing days.  They have do this or the income from those races is lost.  It's a win/lose situation they are in...but that is for another blog post.  Once the racing started, Brian had a bit of an issue with keeping air in his tire.  That would be one big ass screw sticking out of his carbon wheel.  Luckily for us, we know people who can fix this up without an issue.  But still, it is shitty luck.  The rest of the fast kids did a great job racing. 

What has really been the best racing this year has been the Back to Basics CX races put on by our buddies over at RLW.  They guys have taken the lead in putting on quality events, timely results and have impoved the course at the kiddie prison in Golden this year.  For the same cost as a bottle of Chimay, you go out and race, either in your category or race up a category and challenge yourself and still get in a great workout in.  Hell, the C's race, which is the SM4's and BDDL has an average of 70 guys each week.  There are only 2 races left but get out there and have fun.

I finally got out from behind the wheel of my new toy, Little Blauw, and pinned on a number and raced in the heat of Sunday over at Adrenaline CX.  Since I have not raced since the TT, I didn't get a call up and I dont know why.  Started at the back, moved up and settled in and then went about the business at hand of not throwing up.  Finsihed without falling down, having a screw through my wheel and felt pretty good about it.  With the weekend of cold temps and mountain races coming up, cross season is shaping up to be a good time.  Enjoy!

Cross season is here

The first cross race of the season is now in the books.  This is how it went.

Damn, that hurt last night.  See everyone Saturday at the Kick It TT.  FMVC is one of the host clubs so swing by and say Hi and steal some of the beer.

That is all.

So we have the full schedule

Ok, so we were off by 1 race for the first 2 months.  We missed the Monarch HS race.  We had been drinking while we put it together.  Proost!! 

Here is the full schedule released by the ACA around 445p today.

Sept
Saturday Sept 8th - PPV Supercross
Sunday Sept 9th - Open
Saturday Sept 15th - Kick it CX Festival
Sunday Sept 16th - Boulder Racing #1 Valmont
Saturday Sept 22nd - Boulder Racing #2 Xilinx
Sunday Sept 23rd - Queens of Cross
Saturday Sept 29th - Primalpalooza
Sunday Sept 30th - Adrenalin CX




Oct
Saturday Oct 6th - Frisco
Sunday Oct 7th - Cross the River
This is also the weekend of Jr. CX camp in Lafayette
Saturday/Sunday Oct 13/14th - USGP in Fort Collins
Saturday Oct 20th - Boulder Racing #3 Interlocken
Sunday Oct 21st - Blue Sky Velo Cup Xilinx
Saturday Oct 27th - CO Cross Classic - Just says in Boulder.  Dont let us down Boups
Sunday Oct 28th - Boulder Cup - Just says in Boulder.  Help a brotha out Chris at DBC

Nov
Saturday Nov 3rd - Schoolyard Cross
Sunday Nov 4th Fall Back Cross - This is the time change race with a new schedule from here on out.  Says it is being permitted by USAC so this is a Springs race
Saturday Nov 10th - Cyclo-X at Sienna Lake
Sunday Nov 11th - DBC CX Monarch HS
Saturday Nov 17th - Boulder Racing #4 Westminster
Sunday Nov 18th - Alpha Cross
Saturday Nov 24th - Parker CX
Sunday Nov 25th - Green Mountain Sports #1

Dec
Saturday Dec 1st - Cyclo-X at Louisville
Sunday Dec 2nd - Castle Cross
Saturday Dec 8th - Boulder Racing #5 Superior
Sunday Dec 9th - Green Mountain Sports #2
Saturday/Sunday Dec 15/16th - States CX with Cross of the North in Loveland

So the biggest thing about the schedule is the lack of cross designation from the ACA.  It was my understanding that all races before Oct would have Bronze points available regardless.  Then Silver and Gold points would be based on merit, quality of the race and past performances from the promotor.  I dont know what is going on but these questions need to be answered at some point:

• Are they still working on a solution of the timing issue fallout from Superior Morgul? 
• Is Boulder Racing going to use thier own timing system that they own? 
• Have ACA given up on thier timing system and looking at other options or just scraping it all together?