CCCX XC #1 -By Mike Urbina

What a great day, the weather was perfect. You wouldn't think so by the way things looked when I left Morgan Hill, but as I made my way down 101 the fog amazingly lifted.
Since it was Valentines Day and only the first race of the series, I didn't expect a great turnout but I couldn't have been more wrong; it was the biggest one I've seen for this series.
Hell, I didn't decide to go until the day before.

Allan showed up as I was heading to registration. Nice of him to show up early to take pictures and cheer people on. His race didn't start til 1pm.
With registration out of the way I got suited up and unloaded my mountain bike which hadn't been ridden since last June...... at the CCCX finals last year...... Yea......
At the starting line I only see 2 guys I recognize from last year with all the rest being new guys. One of the new guys was wearing TWW shorts but I did not recognize him. I went over to introduce myself and he indentified himself only as "JL".
We were already a big group (21) and they added the 55+ guys with us as well. Off the start I'm near the back but I wasn't too concerned as I have no plans to set the world on fire today! We get about 2/3rds of the way to where we turn right onto the dirt and I see the pack starting to slow a bit so I break to the outside, out of the saddle. I get into the singletrack in about 5th position. A mile or so into it there's still alot of jockying going on and I somehow find myself in the lead. This isn't supposed to be happening and I seriously doubt I can hold on to it very long. I was correct. Over the next 2 laps some guys in my category came by me but I'm not getting totally dropped and we're having some good little battles. I keep count as they go by to see if I can stay in the top 5.
On lap 3 I'm in 6th place (at the time I thought I might be in 5th but no) and trying hard to reel some people in. I make up alot of time in the twisty berm sections (way fun) but I just don't have the goods to keep up on the climbs and I start to see them pull away.
Just after the start of the 4th and final lap 2 more guys get by me including JL. I see any chance for a podium completely dry up then!
Now my goal is to keep them in sight and maybe get them back. At that point I concentrated on being as smooth as I could with my cadence and keeping corner speed to a maximum. It works as I pass the first guy in front of me then I set my sights on JL. I catch and pass him on a long, exposed flat section and pull away. I was feeling pretty confident that I'd put him away but in another half mile he catches and passes me. Crap! As we drop down out of the singletrack onto the pavement before the last quarter mile to the finish, JL has about a 15 yard gap on me. I see Allan on the side of the course and he yells "Stand up Mike". With the last bit of gas I have I do just that and hammer out of the saddle, closing the gap as we make the left hander back into the dirt.
Thanks Allan.
Another short straightaway and we approach a 90 degree right hander that has 2 distinct lines. I'm sizing up JL waiting to see if he will take the inside or outside. He chooses the outside so I go inside braking ever so slightly so as to keep my corner speed up. I nail the turn and unfortunately for JL he goes slightly wide, allowing me to get by. I then give it all I've got to the finish and cross the line in 6th. After the finish line JL and I congratulated each other on a great battle. This is what racing is all about!!
I hung around to watch the start of Allan and Rich H's (Expert!) races and took a couple of pics. Kirsten McDaniel was also there and had a podium finish.
Great day, great weather, great racing, great to see everyone again. Time for me to get back in the saddle!
Mike U. 6/21 @1:32:15

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CCCX Downhill - by Erik Trauschke

Ok, so here's my version of yesterday:
I had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning even though I went
to bed early. However, I drove to Scott's place to meet with the others
and catch the van. And surprisingly enough, we left almost on time, even
though Scott was part of the group ;)

In Toro park we met Rich and Rafael and a bunch of other guys. Everybody
was trying to get going as fast as possible to get registered for a good
start time (which actually didn't mean much) and to get enough practice
runs in. I realized that I had forgotten my shoes but luckily Rich had
some old spares. I registered for the Hardtail class, since I'm still
waiting for my "real" bike.
I did my practice runs together with Scott so we both started climbing
up at about 10:00. The weather was really nice and we actually got
pretty warm climbing up to the start. I left Scott going ahead of me and
started immediately after him to try to keep his wheel. The first part
was all medium steep fireroad with a few rollers where you couldn't see
what was behind the top. That probably was good since otherwise I would
have braked too much going over the rough stuff on the other side. But
the bike just flew over it.
Then there was a singletrack section which had bunch of sandy
switchbacks with steps in them and in one of them I just went over the
bars since the sandy surface didn't make my wheel rolling around the
corner. But nothing happened. I continued, got shaken good by the rutted
sections and finally got to the bottom.
Scott just switched his Nomad for his Hardtail and we were going back up
again. At the top, Scott started messing with his seat, tried to fix it
and we went on for our second training run. Somewhere in the switchbacks
I saw him at the side of the trail with his seatpost about to
disintegrate. At the bottom he tried to fix it and he got the regular
500 opinions from 500 people on how to fix it. In the end he came up
with a very neat contraption, which looked hilarious. I think most of
the people made a photo of that so there should be a picture coming up
soon.

Then it was finally time for the race. We headed back up and at the
start were like 100 people waiting to race that course. With 1 minute
time gaps you can calculate how long I had to wait. Got a mild sunburn
while waiting (yeah, it was actually gorgeous weather) and at some point
it was my turn to go.

My goal was not to embarrass myself and not to get caught by guy after
me. The latter wasn't that hard since the whole run only took 3-4
minutes, depending on the rider. So I shot down the fireroad section,
always telling myself "take the finger of the brake! let it run!" and I
was feeling pretty fast. Then I got into the singletrack section, which
by now has been pretty beaten up by all the riders. Especially the brake
bumps in the corners were killing me. But I got through it without
problems, but also pretty slow. At the bottom was a section which was
very smooth, flat and at one point even ascending. So I started kicking
the pedals as fast as possible to race to the finish line.

So I ended up 5th in the HT class, out of 8. I was ok with it since I
also wouldn't have been last in the sports category of my age class.

Now I'm looking forward to my new bike even more, I definitely will do
that again. Props to Jeff, Scott, Rich and all the others who won medals
in our group. Next time, though, we have to send down Scott in 3
categories, so that he can get one medal of each color ;)

Erik

PS: the barbecue afterwards was awesome too :D

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CCCX Downhill - By Rafael Ruis

I'll keep this one short. It was a nice TWW turnout with Rich, Scott, Erik,
Jeff, Dan, Patrick, and many other friends showing up.

Anyways, I'm entered in the regular DH and the SS cats. So I do one practice
run on each bike, and on the second practice run, I got up to hammer and test
the legs in the uphill section, but I feel the same cramp from yesterday's
grasshopper. Oops, oh well, its not that bad. The race came and went with too
much brake checking. The runs weren't that good at all, and kinda
disappointing, but I stayed up, and had a great time with the TWW guys and bbq.
I didn't do well at all for the day's race, but I ended up in 2nd for the
overall singlespeed, and in a tie for 3rd for the beginners, despite missing
half the races. I realized I have many DH weaknesses to work on, but I'll be
back! When it comes to a 3.5 minute race, I need to learn how to let it go and
take more risks. I'm used to xc/endurance racing where you take a lot less
risks.

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Grasshopper - By Rafael Ruis

IMy first grasshopper, and definitely not the last. I carpooled with Morgan
Fletcher and several other guys from Team Oakland, and we got to Occidental at a
good time. Registered, geared up, and ready to go. This is about 50 miles of
mixed road and fire road, and if you were sneaky, some singletrack. Weapon of
choice was the CX bike. Levi Leipheimer was among us lining up, and soon we
were off with a neutral roll out until the first big climb.

The pros were gone,and the rest of us were sorting ourselves out. Most of the
ride was pace line,fire road climb, slick dirt descents (passing roadies on cross bikes,
and getting passed by mt. bikes). Pretty soon we were at the Willow Creek crossing,
which was a thigh deep, pretty fast moving river thanks to the recent storms. I
had actually opened a slight gap on most of my group during the descent, and I
noticed one guy at the creek removing his shoes. Being that we still had about
25 miles or so to go, I decided to take mine off too. It was a smart move
because right after I crossed, a rather large group came through, and we formed
a nice little group for the upcoming road grind. My group included Justin
Morgan of Sexual Camel fame, and Allison, the first female finisher. We formed
a pretty good paceline dropping a few and picking up some stranded solos (I
would have been one of these solo stranded pick ups if, but with soggy shoes).

By the time we reached Willow Creek road, we picked up a couple of familiar
faces (Michigan Matt, Paule of the mice who stopped to help Kristen who crashed
hard due to a broken frame… ouch). We kept going until the broken road turned
to the fire road climb. Justin gave me the details, 3 miles of dirt climbing,
then 2 miles of road descent. Being the punk I am, I tried to drop everyone I
was with, mainly wanting to beat Matt, but dropping Justin would be a nice
surprise. I put my head down, and a couple minutes later, I opened up a gap
enough where I didn't see anyone behind me. Once we got to the top of the dirt,
there was a tiny bit of pavement climbing, and I started to cramp but was able
to soft pedal it out. Justin caught back up to me, and we formed a small group
of 4 for the rollers and descent. Finished 109/250ish at 3:24, about 42 minutes
behind the winner and Levi. As we roll into town, there was a benefit bake sale
going on by the local school kids, so of course I had to tear into some rice
krispy treats and cookies. Then beer, then pizza. Overall awesome time, even
though it's not really a race, and more of a training ride. Can't wait for
Chileno Valley on 2/20.

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