Race #2

This is my second race report for the season. On Sunday, I drove up to Cincy to race at the BioWheels/ United Dairy Farms races at Harbin Park. This was a UCI race (at least for the elite riders), which means that it was an internationally sanctioned race. A lot of the top cross racers in the country were there, including the women’s national champion, Katie Compton, who also finished second at the world championships last year.

This was the first time that I had ever raced at Harbin, though it has been used for several years as a race venue.

I had pre-registered for the race and at the time there were already almost 40 people signed up for the race, which would have made it the biggest race that I had ever done (not counting a combined race fields). Add to the 40 who were preregistered, 25 more people signed up the day of the race, bringing the total to 65 starters.

At the gun we all got off the line as quick as possible. I again started a couple of rows back, and so there were about 30 people ahead of me going into the first turn. I had made a serious gearing error, as this course had a lot more climbing on it than the last race. There was one set of barriers, a 50ft sand pit, and a 40 m run up (well, it was a run up for me, but most everyone else was able to ride up it). Add to this was the fact that a lot of the racers who normally did the A race were doing the B race today because they did not have international licenses.

I really gassed it the first couple of laps and was happy with how the race was going. That is until the start of the 3rd to last lap, that was when my race started to fall a part, or I guess it was when my legs started to fall apart and I slowly began to slip further and further back away from the lead (which was almost 3/4 lap ahead of me). I finished without getting lapped, in 40th place, which was something of a disappointment cause I
had hoped to finish in the top 30.

I thought about sticking around to watch the elite races, but decided to head for home.
I had driven up through Kentucky on my way to Cincy, because it was all interstate driving. On my way home, I decided to drive back through Indiana. Well, ultimately I did make it home, but it took a little longer than I had hoped, cause I took a couple of roads that were not the most direct route back to Utica. But, I did get to explore a whole part of Indiana that I had never been to before, and there were lots of cool, twisty roads to drive on along the shore of the Ohio river.