ADAM CRAIG’S DIARY – NOVEMBER 13, 2009

NEW ENGLAND CYCLOCROSS

(Editor’s note: Adam writes about his results in a ‘cross race in Northampton, MA, on November 8. He also writes about why there’s a week’s delay in getting this report out. We’ll let Adam tell the story below on why there’s been a delay – but it has to do with field-dressing a deer. He sent some photos of the procedure, but we’ve opted not to show them here. If you’d like to take a look, first take a deep breath and then click on: http://adamcraig.net/blog.html)


CYCLE-SMART INTERNATIONAL 2, NORTHAMPTON, MA – USA, C2

Since I fell on my face in Vegas it’s time to play ‘cross catch-up. This is a great excuse to head back to the east coast early for some hanging out at home in Maine during the week and racing the Verge New England Championship and some other Acronym (USGP, NACT) Series on the weekends. The plan for this past weekend was slightly ambitious but would pay off huge if it worked out. All I had to do was drive to Reno to catch a flight to Portland, Maine, then hop in with Sparky for a ride down to Highland Mountain Bike Park in New Hampshire for a Friday downhill shred, back to Portland, meet up with Dad Saturday morning for the trek across the Mass. Pike to Northampton and two afternoons of racing/UCI point getting. My head hurts and back is sore just recollecting it…

Step one worked out well, other than a short pause for a speed warning in Lakeview, OR (from a cop I knew was following me but wasn’t too concerned with going EXACTLY the limit in the middle of nowhere), and I had hours to spare in Reno before my flight out east. (Which will hopefully pay dividends with early season Pow Slaying at Squaw Valley on the way back west). Lots of sleeping on the flights and some delicious homemade burritos at Sparky’s place had me feeling rested and ready for Friday’s shred fest. And shred fest it was, although tour-guide kept wrecking, the final one being a spectacular lane-changer on the (funnest thing I’ve ever ridden) Slalom track. Turns out you do see stars after lawn-darting. Rad. Thanks to Mark at Highland for sliding us some lift passes and having perfect weather on trails that they’re always improving the perfection of. Really fun. www.highlandmountain.com

Now, serious business. Cyclocross. It’s on bikes that look like road bikes so it’s gotta be serious, right? There are definitely a bunch of folks into it in these parts, the New England Series attendance that rivals that of the Portland, OR Cross Crusade but with a UCI point reward for the Elite Competitors. Thanks, NECCS organizers, for taking this just a little bit serious so we can help ourselves… Now, to offset all this seriousness, they cleverly looped the course around Look Park in a way that took us over the miniature kid’s railroad tracks no less than four times. Yup, jumps galore. Kind of small ones but airtime in a skinny tire race nonetheless. I’ll take it.

I’ll also take my “UCI hasn’t updated points yet and you don’t race our series” back-of-the-pack start position, thank you very much. I’ll be able to see all the crashes start, happen and finish before I cleverly avoid them. Day one’s crash was at the super scary “4-inch curb with ramp over it onto lawn” about 200 meters in that everyone shrieked and leapt off their bikes at the sight of. I applied my “brakes” and avoided the carnage, then bridged up to the twenty or so guys who can “bunny-hop” and set about racing around the perfectly dry park on a perfectly sunny day. The looping nature of the course let me talk smack to Jeremy Powers and Jamie Driscoll, who were off the front in their normal team dominance fashion. They didn’t respond, and I only got as close as fifth by the end of the hour, so my good-natured threats never really came to fruition… Lucky them.

I’m not sure if it was more joking threats to beat a solo Jamie (Powers was doing a helmet awareness fundraiser ride in CT), my pep talk to the grid before the start to “take a deep breath, pull your heads out of each other’s asses, and don’t crash on the first straight”, or my unlucky (albeit PIMP) white leather Giro Gloves that caused the crash about 25 meters off the line, in a straight line, on Sunday, but it happened. I’m pretty sure it was a perfect storm of two guys next to each other who forgot their glasses and that they’ve NEVER ridden a bike before that caused the circus pileup immediately following the gun. I hit the deck hard but jumped up quick and grabbed my bike, wait, the seat is too low and the brakes are reversed, this isn’t my bike… Ok, grabbed MY bike and set out on a front flat with bent handlebars and levers to try and catch up. Awesome. Less lucky were the two guys who were still down when I came around a half lap later with a fresh bike. We learned after the race that there was a broken wrist and a broken collarbone. Awesome. Learn to ride, people, so others don’t suffer. Anyway, after that I hit jumps and rode fast to catch lotsa guys and eventually get up to 9th, a couple points and not dead status comprised the rewards of the way. I’ll take it…

Now, I apologize for the delay in this report, but I was kind of enjoying relaxing at Dad’s house in Corinth and figured something noteworthy would happen during the week to really fill out my reporting items. Turns out Dad being late to family dinner at the Countryside Restaurant was a result of one of the neighbors hitting a big eight-point buck just as Harvey was leaving the house. He helped get it loaded up and volunteered to use his field-dressing skills to skin the thing after dinner. Dessert? After some fried Scallops we went back down to the camp to meet Dave and get to work. And by get to work I mean Dave and I taking photos and managing the hanging height of the carcass while Dad did his thing. And quite a thing it was, in under an hour it went from a normal looking dead deer to completely clean and hanging to dry. Going rate for neighbor butcher jobs is half and half, so sounds like we’ll have some venison once its cut up. Yum!