Jingle Cross Report

All Photos: Madcross.org

It was nice to finally stand on the podium again at a race this weekend, especially considering the other two up there with me.
Sunday's race was much more interesting than Saturdays with the Mt Krumpit run up and the death defying decent down the backside. One way or the other I figured the hill would decided the race either by catastrophic blow up on the run up, or serious injury on the decent coming back down.
The picture above was the first lap into the hill and I knew it would be chaos to try and ride it so I planned on running. I think Tilly knew Todd would ride it and punked Todd pretty hard into the corner and tried dismounting in front of him which didn't work because Todd rode it anyway. I had a pretty strong run on the hill all day and the first lap I matched Todd while running and came over the top on his wheel.
I think the race came back together one more time, but the second lap over the hill shredded what was left of the front group and I hung on Todds wheel again as we came down the death defying decent where I nearly saw Todd die as his front wheel jumped about a foot out to the side, luckily Todd knows how to ride a bike somewhat better than the rest of us and kept it upright somehow. I was able to ride the hill a few times after things cleared out, but I could tell as I fatigued I was going to start messing it up and quit after I got dropped to save time and energy if I goofed it.
So basically I followed Todd around for half the race feeling a bit like a loser for just sitting on, but that was all I had and eventually when he had a small gap in a windy section he kept the pressure on and I came off his wheel. Horner caught me within a lap and went by me like he was motorpacing a semi truck and I never even had a chance to get on the wheel. Then it was just hang on and maintain the gap over Bjorn who had two really good days of racing starting from the back.
I'm still feeling pretty tired today from the race and with the weather only 22 outside right now with a 30mph wind I got my first trainer ride of the season in. It wasn't too bad, but considering tomorrow might be the same thing only with snow in the forecast it might be time to get a few better movies and do it the right way.

Portland USGP is this weekend and I am squared away to go. If anyone is going to be out there and wants to make a couple bucks being a pitman/mechanic for the day let me know, I'm going to need help in the deep deep mud.