Between the Tape: Ellwood recaps US CX Nationals
Between the Tape: Ellwood recaps US CX Nationals
Words: Grant Ellwood
Photos: Bruce Buckley
What an awesome Cyclocross National Championships that was! I still get excited thinking about how much fun the racing was on such a rowdy course.
While the race and course were awesome the whole week was not the same. My parents and I flew out Wednesday night so I could watch my brother race in the collegiate race Thursday morning. Ross ended up crashing in the first corner and broke his collar bone which required surgery that night so I ended up spending most of Thursday in the hospital with him and most of the following afternoons with him once he was back at my parents hotel.
Luckily, I raced on Sunday so I had some time to change my mindset from focusing on making sure Ross is okay to putting together the best possible race I could.
I first got on course Friday and did two laps learning the course and seeing what it was like. The course was very brutal with long steep run ups and hard bumpy muddy sections but the best part was the wild downhills. I kept it as easy as possible because this was my easy day before Sunday. Saturday I did one lap but pushed some of the more technical sections to see how it flowed and help open the legs and then finished the ride with openers.
As Sunday rolled around I was ready to race. I felt good on course and as far as I could tell the body felt good too. After a pre-ride lap earlier in the morning and a solid warm up I lined up 16th call-up on the second row. I knew the start was super key because it funneled down into an off camber right after the first decent and that would slow tons of people down so I gave it everything on the start.
It was terrifying trying to navigate my way towards the front because everyone was shifting all over the place and tires were rubbing tires but we got through safe. I moved up a bunch after the pavement and on the first run up passed a couple more people going into the first descent in 3rd, so that was a mission accomplished.
From here it was pedal to the metal and try and ride smooth. I found myself sitting just off the leaders in 6th for the first half of the race until a hard charging Drew Dillman and Logan Owen caught me and the remainder of the race we were shuffling around. In the end I finished 8th and even though I was hoping for a better result I am happy with it because I gave it everything I had and made few to no mistakes, I just didn't have the engine like the front guys.
Some of the highlights from the weekend were bombing down the descents with everyone screaming and beating my teammate Courtenay in Mario Kart on the OG Super Nintendo!
Words: Grant Ellwood
Photos: Bruce Buckley
What an awesome Cyclocross National Championships that was! I still get excited thinking about how much fun the racing was on such a rowdy course.
While the race and course were awesome the whole week was not the same. My parents and I flew out Wednesday night so I could watch my brother race in the collegiate race Thursday morning. Ross ended up crashing in the first corner and broke his collar bone which required surgery that night so I ended up spending most of Thursday in the hospital with him and most of the following afternoons with him once he was back at my parents hotel.
Luckily, I raced on Sunday so I had some time to change my mindset from focusing on making sure Ross is okay to putting together the best possible race I could.
I first got on course Friday and did two laps learning the course and seeing what it was like. The course was very brutal with long steep run ups and hard bumpy muddy sections but the best part was the wild downhills. I kept it as easy as possible because this was my easy day before Sunday. Saturday I did one lap but pushed some of the more technical sections to see how it flowed and help open the legs and then finished the ride with openers.
As Sunday rolled around I was ready to race. I felt good on course and as far as I could tell the body felt good too. After a pre-ride lap earlier in the morning and a solid warm up I lined up 16th call-up on the second row. I knew the start was super key because it funneled down into an off camber right after the first decent and that would slow tons of people down so I gave it everything on the start.
It was terrifying trying to navigate my way towards the front because everyone was shifting all over the place and tires were rubbing tires but we got through safe. I moved up a bunch after the pavement and on the first run up passed a couple more people going into the first descent in 3rd, so that was a mission accomplished.
From here it was pedal to the metal and try and ride smooth. I found myself sitting just off the leaders in 6th for the first half of the race until a hard charging Drew Dillman and Logan Owen caught me and the remainder of the race we were shuffling around. In the end I finished 8th and even though I was hoping for a better result I am happy with it because I gave it everything I had and made few to no mistakes, I just didn't have the engine like the front guys.
Some of the highlights from the weekend were bombing down the descents with everyone screaming and beating my teammate Courtenay in Mario Kart on the OG Super Nintendo!