This will be my first and only blog post for the 2012 and some of 2013 cyclocross season! First off, I would like to again thank everyone from Nuts about Granola and the support they have given me. Also big thanks to Chris at Sublime Athletics for laying out a detailed training plan. It’s been amazing and I can’t wait to see how the team grows from here. Everyone on the team is awesome, and it’s amazing to see the support everyone gives one another.
Until the win at Ed Sander, US nationals were pretty much an afterthought. But, with the points from Ed Sanders, I saw that my USA cycling ranking was starting to improve significantly ,and I definitely deserved to be in the big race. So that marked my decision to race. Since the form started really pouring on after my last UCI race, I knew that my start position would be a bad one without any UCI points.
However, watching last years race from 2012, I could see that the course was wide open and left plenty of opportunity to make up spots. So, I talked to my college roommate Josh (who works for united) and he booked me a cheap flight.
Friday, I left for Dulles airport and landed myself no charge on the bike for the way out. Arriving in Chicago, I took a shuttle to the rental car and picked up my car. Turns out I landed a Prius. Due to the hilarity of driving a Prius in my mind, this trip was going great. Mind you, I have never driven a car with as little power as a Prius. I think it took about 22 seconds to get from 0 to 60, and that was KMPH. After somehow blowing through every toll on the way up I90 (thankfully I was able to pay online),
I arrived in Madison, and checked into my hotel at the Baymount. Went over to a sweet Italian place and ate about 9 pieces of bread, 2 bowls of soup, and a pizza. From there I went back to the hotel, and surfed Facebook to see if anything was going on. I found out there was a sweet party at the Machinery Row bike shop. This bike shop was right along Lake Monona and had some high end product. They were serving free frites, and lots of beer. I held back on all sadly, and checked out the scene. All the top guys were there, as I got to witness first hand some Behind the Barriers action. After the party started to wind down, I headed back to the hotel (grabbed some Panera) watched the Other Guys on TV (Has some real great Prius scenes) and went to bed.
Next day I woke up and contemplated going to the course for a pre ride. After some decision weighing, I decided I would ride the course. Drove about 9 minutes to the course, bundled up and headed out. Needless to say it was a huge mistake. Within .4 seconds my bike weighed 4,352 lbs, I had way too much clothes on, and I could barely pick up my bike after one lap. Finishing the lap, I caught up with Steevo Cummings (20/20-C3Athletes Serving Athletes ) and we headed to the pits to wash our bikes. We waited in line for about 30 minutes until we approached our turn. At that very moment, we got kicked out of the pit for the next race. At this point I was freezing cold, soaking wet, and had a bike that looked like Chewbacca. I had no choice but to head back to the car. I threw it in the back, and went to find a car wash. Mind you, finding this car wash took the whole afternoon-Apparently, do it your self car washes are not very popular in Madison. Upon washing my bike, I headed back to the hotel-cleaned my bike and sat it on the heater to dry out the bottom bracket (it actually worked).
At 4, I picked my buddy Josh up at the Great Dane airport, and we stopped at the Ale Asylum. I drank water as my friend Josh downed a few brews, while we watched hilariously at our drunk bartender. While we were getting ready to leave, an attractive female at the bar asked me if we had ever met before. I said no, and she went on to say that we must have been close in another life. I found this totally hilarious, as she asked me for my phone number so she could come watch the cross race. She told me that she had a carbon cannondale, a BMW, and that she attended Northwestern on a lacrosse scholarship. She gave us great advice on where to eat, and told me to text her. She never showed up to the race, but did wish me luck. So that’s half a point for the reliability of females! Just kidding, women are great.
On this girl’s advice, we went into downtown Madison, and ate at the restaurant Graze, all of the food in this place was grown or raised on a farm from Wisconsin. Hence why a pickle tray was 7 bucks, Josh’s burger 21 bucks, and my bibimbap was 14. Bibimbap is crunchy rice, egg, veggies, and pork; very interesting to say the least. After Graze, we checked out UW’s campus and my buddy picked up some Big Flat beer from Walgreens. This stuff literally costs, $2.99 for a six-pack. High quality right there.
Next morning, I wake up and am ready to race. The course is apparently frozen, so I’m not nearly worried about my lack of pit crew and pit bike. I go and pick up my packet, head to the starbucks for my liquid fuel, and grab some lunch from the Skratch labs trailer. Chef Biju heard I was racing and HOOKED me up to say the least. I had some rice, eggs, and chicken-totally fantastic and the best pre race food I have ever had. After I finish my lunch, the slot was open for the elite men to pre ride the course. I headed out to brave the 18 degrees, hoping the course would be awesome.
This is where things really started to fall apart. This may sound over dramatic, but I can honestly say, I have never been so concerned for my own safety in any sporting event. Within moments, my bike was picking up mud-which was freezing immediately onto my bike, my tires were bottoming out with every rut, and if at any moment I went off course, the ruts would take you into the most uncontrollable and violent shaking of body and bike. I finished my lap and called my Dad. I told him that I don’t think my bike would make it through the race and that I felt like I was in over my head. Fitness wise, I knew I had worked really hard and was on a good form, but I think that’s what upset me the most. With my start, and the course, I knew that my fitness would be a very small factor today. I talked to the guy parked beside us, and pulled the plug on his race saying that it wasn’t worth his safety.
Josh took my bike to pits to clean it, and I sat in the car slowly sipping my coffee. I sat there and realized, everyone out there safety wise was in the same position as me; if I ride a smart race I can really make up a lot of ground with my running if I have to. So I packed up my stuff and headed to the athlete tent-from here I ran into Jared(Haymarket), Steevo(C3), Wes (Haymarket), and Greg(Bobs Red Mill). First familiar faces of the weekend, and for the first time since my pre-ride, I was pumped and ready to race again. The guys calmed me down and gave me some good advice as we warmed up until staging. Right before staging, I realized that my tire had gone flat when I let out a little bit of air. I quickly ran to the car and pumped it back up just making it back on time for the staging. My start was 2nd row from the back, but I was feeling good. The whistle went off, and I slammed my bike into gear. Within about 150 meters, 2 guys to my left slammed into the wall and took about 5 down to my right (from what I could see) I swerved to the left and made it safely into the rutted hell. From there I stayed calm and saw some familiar bodies (Greg and Steevo) up ahead, after watching the live feed I realize that I had worked my way to 41st position. I rode a scary but clean lap, and headed out for a second one. This one went relatively until the stairs. After this section of the stairs, I could no longer clip and, and my bike was losing brakes and lost all gears but 3 in the rear. I kept on as good as I could, until I hit pavement. From there I hopped off my bike and stomped on the ground removing mud from my cleats. I clipped back in and headed out for my 3rd lap. As climbing, a guy made and unsafe pass sending me into the ruts, I caught one large enough and went over the bars in a twisting motion. I came down hard on my hip and forearm dropping my chain. I hopped up and tried my quickest to put it back in gear. I eventually got it, and was definitely a bit shaken. From here I focused on getting my cleats clean when I could. Eventually I hit pavement, but at this point the 80% each lap got me. I couldn’t believe I was done, but knew that it was a matter of time before my bike failed completely. Lifting my rear wheel, I realized that my wheel could no longer spin and my brakes were frozen shut. From here I watched the rest of the race from the athlete tent, as one by one riders were being pulled or suffering mechanicals.
While I was pretty disappointed, scoring my lowest ranking all season (other than when I wrecked out of DCCX) I knew that there were a lot of factors I couldn’t control. And couldn’t help but think of our old college running theory, that everyone has a bad or hard experience at their first nationals. So from here it can only go up, and it’s definitely going to be a fun one in Boulder next year! Thanks again everyone, time for me to take a week off and then get my miles up so I can see what type of damage I can do at Monster Cross the end of February. Hope to see you all out on some rides!
~Jake Sitler~
