Bogstomp

I found a video of the race I did last weekend. This guy was able to ride the whole course. He must be tougher than me. He rode the 30 minute race. The course was more torn up when I rode the 50 minute race.

Winter

Winter is here, finally. Saturday morning I loaded my cross race stuff, including my pop up canopy and heater, into the truck and headed for Eureka. It was snowing lightly on Crescent City hill, snowing heavily on the Redwood Park bypass and raining heavily at lower elevations. It reminded me of something I always tell people new to the Pacific Northwest. If you plan an outdoor activity and the forecast is for shitty weather, just go do it anyway. It almost always works out. By the time I got to Eureka the weather was almost nice. It didn't rain at all while I was at the race. It rained hard as I was getting ready to leave the race. Perfect.
The race was called Bogstomp and was held out on Elk River, enlarge the picture and you can see route from my Garmin. It was on the Wrigley property which was an apple orchard until Pacific Lumber Company raped the forest and caused the river to flood every year killing the apple trees. There's a book's worth of story about that. As a child I used to ride my bike out there to go fishing and sneak into the old abandoned town of Falk. The race course was two sections of single track through the woods connected by old road sections. The single track was so muddy that I, as well as most of the other racers, ran it carrying our bikes. Even the roads were muddy to the point that you couldn't ride a straight line. It was the muddiest race I have ever done. Muddiest cyclocross race anyway. The Horning's MTB race was muddier. It was fun though and rewarding to finish. I think the some people abondoned the effort. I raced the long race, 50 minutes. It took me slightly over an hour. It was fun to meet new people who like to race bikes. I beat a couple of people.
That was my last race of the year. It even snowed at my house today, at sea level, so I didn't ride. I now need to figure out my training for the next month and a half. I probably won't race again until the Cherry Pie road race in February. Base building I guess.

December?

Is it really December? I can't believe the weather lately. Friday I rode my cross bike at Cadra Ranch and it was beautiful.











Saturday I raced the Stomach Churn down near Arcata. I've raced there the last two years and I remembered that it is a rough course. I took my single speed Niner as well as my cross bike. It was a good move as I ended up riding it. The course was really bumpy. I saw a lot of bikes get their chains bounced off. It was a hard race. Maybe it would've been easier with gears. At one point I realized why it's called Stomach Churn. I felt like hurling. I raced the thirty minute race and at the end of my third lap I waited for the leaders to lap me so I didn't have to do another one.
I think I'm going to race in Humboldt County again next week. That will be my last race of the year.

Psycho Cross

I raced Sunday in Eugene. I have delayed writing about it because it was fairly unremarkable. We had been in Portland since Wednesday and left early Sunday morning so I could race. I've raced at this location before and have enjoyed it. The course was slightly different from last year. There was a long section around the agricultural fields. Some of that section was muddy but it was sticky mud. Kind of slippery but it only got on the tires. There was some single track, a stair runup, a steep downhill switchback, a steep rideable uphill, and some barriers. I was outclassed by everyone in my race but one junior so I was not very motivated. I didn't dog it but I didn't push it either. As I said, unremarkable. I stayed upright and I finished. It's probably my last OBRA race for the year. I'm not going to Portland for the USGP race and I probably won't go back to Eugene in two weeks. I'm going to race in Humboldt County this Saturday and maybe the next weekend too. I've raced 32 times so far this year with no races in January or July. That's almost every weekend.