My first go at the Nittany Lion UCI CX race is history. It was a sub-par performance plagued with mechanicals......and I'm super psyched about it.
Why? Because.....a post surgery mediocre performance additionally limited by bike issues is still as good as, or better than, my absolute best day under perfect conditions from the pre-surgery era.
Yeah, on Saturday my bars slipped down in the first lap. Oh that trick. I feel like no matter how tight you tighten your stem, this WILL happen once every year. It's inevitable. However this year, after the bar slip I also had my left hood continue to migrate down the bar until my hand was falling off the front of it and removing the skin in the process. At some point I submitted and fell to the drops, which was relief for the hand and hell for the lower back. I was the tail end of the sprinting group at the end for 4th. I felt like I was not able to produce the power that I have become used to producing after surgery, but attributed this to the handlebar situation.
For Sunday I moved everything back to it proper spot and tightened it all down. Since I had the slip out of the way, this was a productive measure and things stayed put like they should. The race was faster today with Steven Hyde stretching things from the beginning. Feeling a little better than Saturday, but definitely not on par with mid-week. Must be still working out the kinks or adjusting to the spikey effort of CX. Regardless I was more "in the mix"...."mixing it up" and stuff. By the last part of the last lap I was securely in 3rd and closing pretty fast on 2nd, when I rolled a tire. I ran the last 5 corners and walked across for 5th.
Oh well. Gotta get this stuff out of the way. Looking at names in the results at CrossVegas and doing some comparison and estimations.......you know, that stuff racers always do....."well if I beat him here and he did that there" or "my numbers are this, so if I raced there I would be in this place"......well, anyway, I liked what I saw when I did that......maybe I can just send them a power file and they can stick me in the results where I should have finished.
