Kissena | Cross racing and other shenanigans -- A weekend report by Dan Chabanov (a Win Saturday, 3rd place Sunday)

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Cross racing and other shenanigans -- A weekend report by Dan Chabanov (a Win Saturday, 3rd place Sunday)

Man that was a fun weekend.

Dan over the barriers at the Hillbilly Hustle V.4 (Photo by Anthony Skorochod)

Two cross races and five hundred and thirty miles of driving.

The shenanigans started quite early on Friday night. The plan was to leave for Philly after watching a friends band play a house show. Nothing goes according to plan at these events and what was supposed to be an eleven pm depart and a one am bed time, became a one thirty am depart and a three thirty am(who ever heard of traffic on Staten island at two am?) bed time for us. After about three hours of sleep we piled back in to the car and set of for Hagerstown MD. I would like to thank my buddy Stephen Pierce for driving those three hours and letting me catch some much needed shut eye.

Dan wins in Hagerstown, MD (Photo by SEPants)

So we rolled up bleary eyed to our first race of the weekend. A quick survey of the course revealed nothing that looked more challenging then a few sharp off cambers and a very steep but rideable run up. The course was fairly short and not very technical at all. Stephen and I lined up for the B race. The start as always was a blur but the course was fairly wide in most parts and lent it self to easily working through the seven or eight riders that made the hole shot in front of me. At the close of the first lap I was in a lead group with two other riders for company. We traded a few attacks but everyone was able to respond to each others moves. Around lap four one of the other two riders over cooked a corner and rolled his tire which took him out of the race. This was followed by an immediate attack by my companion. That was a tough gap to close but i gritted my teeth and went for broke. It worked out that I caught him right at the base of the steep climb. We made it over side by side with three laps to go. But when I threw it in to the big ring to press on for the final laps I realized that a gap of about ten seconds had opened to between us. No need to wait up i though so i just motored on at my own pace with the gap yo-yoing slightly but always opening back up right after the climb on each lap. On the final lap I was able to hold off his charge for the win and took my first win of the cross season. Also props to Stephen for finishing a respectable 17th with more hours spent driving then sleeping.

Dan takes a corner on this way to winning the Breast Cancer Awareness Cyclocross BikeReg/MABRA race (Photo by SEPants)

Now I'm really freaking tired. But hey, the organizers did give me a thirty rack of beer for my hard efforts and there was still the A race left to spectate. So we put some beer in our water bottles to avoid arousing the suspicion of the little league moms that were having their own weekend gathering a few feet away from the course and kept the party going.

Drove back to the Philly home base, ate food, blah blah blah...

OK day two...

Dan leads Alejandro Guzman at the Hillbilly Hustle V.4 (Photo by Anthony Skorochod)

We left Philly at a much more humane hour then yesterday and drove back into the swamplands of New Jersey and a very creepy and foreboding fog which ended abruptly and opened up to sunny skies. Pulling into the parking lot, we instantaneously decided to switch to mud tires, based solely upon the condition of the bikes and kits of the Mens' C racers: caked and layered in thick mud. Most of the course was single track through the woods with a few open sections where passing was only a question of what you had in the tank. There was a few sections of trail that turned in to roots and mud and one bit that was producing the caked kits and bikes we saw in the lot that was quite deep but quite fun to ride.

Eloy takes the deep mud line at the Hillbilly Hustle V.4 (Photo by Pat Engleman)

The race started like all cross races with a sprint for the first corner. I put my track racing skills to work as i bumped and elbowed my way in to a better position. Then it was in to the single track. The first half of the course is a bit harder to pass on so I waited to make my move through the mud where I figured people would take the more conservative but slower outside line. I was correct and with a swift charge down the inside through the really thick mud I moved myself to the front of the group. This course because of the amount of single track lent it self to being faster solo so i went for broke and pored on the gas. When I hit the start/finish line again I had one rider with me who I failed to shake but after him there was plenty daylight to the chase group of three or four. A few laps latter a rider from the chase bridged up to us solo and the pace went up a few notches. The three of us did a lap together but I was starting to feel my earlier pace making efforts in my legs. I spent a few more laps hanging on but eventually lost the wheel in front of me. I made up for it by taking a "beer feed" on my last two laps and ridding in to a solid 3rd.