FOX CUP #2
 

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TWW FOX CUP SERIES #2


Presented by our friends at

Central Coast Cyclocross MTB Series #3


Fort Ord, CA

April 3rd, 2005

Visit their website for entry, directions, accomodations, etc.

TWW Shows up in force at the CCCX #3!

Results

Place Rider # laps Time     First Last          Club/Sponsor           City               Category

3       464     2       1:20:08 Erin Ambrose      Team Wrong Way Hayward       Beg. Women <= 34 9
4       463     2       1:23:55 Eryn Hughes        Team Wrong Way Oakland        Beg. Women <= 34
10     353     3       1:25:05 Loren Thomas     Team Wrong Way Santa Clara    Sport Men <= 34
13     339     3       1:35:19 Matt Corkei        Team Wrong Way San Anselmo  Sport Men <= 34 9
31     969     3       1:33:41 Paul Oellerich      Team Wrong Way Hayward       Sport Men 35-44
26     968     3       1:27:53 Frank Mangin      Team Wrong Way Santa Clara   Sport Men 35-44
20     925     3       1:25:23 Rich Henthorn     Team Wrong Way Santa Cruz     Sport Men 35-44
2       466     3       1:36:03 Charles Price       Team Wrong Way Milpitas         Sport Men 55+
6       37       3       1:37:23 Jennifer Oellerich Team Wrong Way Hayward       Sport Women 35+

Race Reports

 

Rich Henthorn-

CCCX3 held at Fort Ord East Garrison (where else?). I get there about 9:15am for my 10:30 race. Overcast and cool. While I'm filling-out my entry form, I get a blast from the past. Charles-Freakin'-Price sporting an old-school man-on-the-moon jersey. Nice to see him out again (finished 2nd in the 55+ group, too).

Warmed-up with Franck and Loren for a while. Get back JUST in time to line-up at the start before the first wave goes off. Holy Crap! Where do all these 35-44 Sport racers come from? Looked like a field size of 40, including Paul O. and Franck. After the clydesdales, we go. Holy Crap! Where do all these Sport racers get so fast?

The courses they set-up out there are nothing fancy. Lot's of single track on easy rolling hills, no technical sections. What makes it tough on me is that there are no descents that offer any smiles or time to recover. Just on the throttle from start-to-finish. Ouch.  I raced out there in Feb and didn't have a very good race. I felt much better this time. So why was everyone passing me? After a while, I put an end to that, but I think the damage was already done. I held-off a couple guys on the last lap (we did 3 and a third), and handily beat this guy who did the same to me in Feb, but I still could only muster 20th out of 36. Damnation!

I stuck around for most of the Expert race. Got to hand-off a bottle and flask to Brenton while he was duking-it-out with the Expert 35-44s. Criminy. He's got bigger problems than me. I noticed that Isaias was holding his own in the SS class.

I think we had a crew of 12 out there. Not too shabby, but the TWW crowd at SOC will be about 3-times that. 


Looks like Charles "Old School" Price takes the White Lightning schwag with his 2nd place finish. Congrats to Charles.

-Rich

 

 

Isaias Job-

Ok, so after a triple espresso and 3 cups a coffee I'm finally awake enough to churn out a race report.

 
CCCX MTB #3
Fort Ord - East Garrison
4/3/05
TWW Fox Cup Series Race #2
 
This was my first race of the season and my first race on a single speed. So needless to say, I was pretty frick'en nervous...butterfiles and everything. We had a pretty decent TWW showing: Franck, Rich, Jenny, Paul, Erin, Eryn!, Allan, Loren, Jason, Matt (new dude) and myself and some friends of TWW like Meredith (VB) and Paule and Julie of Roaring Mouse. I think I even saw somebody an old blue, TWW jeresey with an X on it? Who was that?
 
Any who, after snapping a few photos of the sport start, I was off to follow them to do a pre-ride. I think this is the best course to date.They made some major changes. The thing that I liked the most, was that they distributed the short steep climbs evenly throughout the race course. There were still some of the paved "classic" paved sections, which was way interesting on a singlespeed since you are spinning at about 150rpms to maintain some amount of speed.
 
Singlespeeders start after the entire expert\semi-pro\pro field. My goal was to catch the expert\pro women and hopefully some of the older age group experts.
 
Rod starts the count down and were off, I rocket out off the start, but all the singlespeeders are just sitting and spinning. Not wanting to distrupt the flow of things, I sit down and spin next to one of the faster ss'ers. As we wind up the paved stretch, the groups begins to string out, I fall behind one of the faster guys and suck his wheel. We hit the dirt and I motor to stay with the two lead guys. This was easy as we are on a singletrack and there isn't really anywhere to pass. We hit the first steep climb by the parking lot and my legs scream at me and I the self doubt begins, what am I doing out here on a singlespeed, am I gonna be able to finish the race and so on an so forth. Meanwhile 3-4 people pass me on the climb as I try to keep turning the pedals.
 
I push ahead, knowing that I'm not a good at race starts, and hoping that my legs will warm up somewhere in the second lap.  I come around after the first lap and i'm thinking, how in the hell am supposed to keep this pace up for 5 laps!
 
Lap two, I'm starting to feel better, I start pushing a bit hard and I start catching people. First I caught a few of the SS who had passed me, then I started catching people in the group before me. I'm feeling pretty good and no signs of cramping yet!
 
Thrid lap, I settle into a good pace and hook up with Pat from Black Market racing. I seem to remember that he is a pretty fast dude, from racing cyclo cross. So  I think, if I can stick with this guy, I should do OK. So we battled it out for the next few laps, I would pass him and he would pass me back. I also passed two of the pro\expert women in this lap and thought woohoo, now I just gotta find Stella! Eventually, I did come up on Stella as we hit the steep climb near the parking lot. I followed Pat as he passed Stella. I actually rubbed bars with her and quickly shouted, sorry stella and she was like, it's cool. In my mind I'm rejoicing, I can believe I passed Stella! She must've been having a bad day!
 
4th Lap, I eventually caught up to a few of the experts in my age group, 34 and under, at this point I was like holy crap, I'm not doing too bad. I  keep pace witht Pat and eventually I see what resembles a TWW jersey in the distance adn I think no f*ing way, that can be Bham. As Pat and I work together we eventually catch and pass Brenton, then we hit a flat road stretch and Bham, being the cool dude that he is, totally let us suck his wheel back to the dirt section. We hit a climb, I pulled ahead of Pat and Bham and then immediately slowed down as I felt like both my quads were going to lock up from cramping. They both passed me. The climb levels off, then turns back up. At the top, I recovered a bit and ask Bham if I could pass again.
 
5th lap, now that I know I'm ahead of a bunch of racers that I know, I more motivated to keep pushing to hold my lead. Pat and I are still battling it out and since I was sucking his wheel for a good while, I told him he could take a turn sucking my wheel and he was like cool. So I managed to pull away from him, but he eventually caught me on the steep climb, near the parking lot. I fended him off on that climb, but as we were getting closer to the end of the course he finally caught me and I was like arg...but didn't really have the legs to push much hard. We come around the corner and bomb down toward the finish and I can hear my team mate cheering me on as I'm trying to close the gap. Pat crossed the finish line and I roll in right in back of him, followed by Bham not to far behind.
 
So, turns out I came in 5th\10 in the SS category. I'll be interested to see where I place in the overall expert field. I'm was a little bit disappointed that I started cramping for what I thought was such a short race, but it turns out that 5 laps was about 32 miles or something like that? Can somebody verify the lenght of one lap?
 
So for my first race I think I did OK. My cardio system was completely in tact,  I was actually able to recover at a heart rate of 172 bpm(my LT) and still put out a decent spin. However, I'm really displeased with the peformance of my legs, I just didn't feel they had any snap to them. I'm sure part of this is due to my training and part of it is due to racing a SS which doesn't allow for any real recovery...no granny gears!
 
One final corporate shout out, F80X was made for single speeding. I love my FOX Terralogic fork!!
 
Cheers,
Isaias

PS Allan\Meredith - Thanks for the feeds!!

The preferred lube of TWW. White Lightning, baby! If you're gonna yank chains you gotta be slick.

 

Matt Cerkel-

Well being the "new dude" I enjoyed finally putting some faces to names, until yesterday I had only met Paul and Jenny.  As for the race I loved the course, it was a little more challenging then CCCX MTB #2 which was my first race of the season.  This was my first race after converting from the new style XTR shifters to X9 trigger shifters, all I'll say about that is I'm glad I converted.  I was in the 19-34 sport class with Loren and as he said the start was more like a road start then a mountain start.  I stayed with the pack, although near the back, until the second climb, but throw the chain, after that I didn't see the pack again.  Later in the first lap I picked the wrong line and a sandy curve a had I minor crash, I should have gone inside not outside and should have preridden the course for a warm up and learn the course, oh well.  I tend take a while to warm up, so I felt the first lap was my weakest.  The race went on I actually felt stronger each lap, my last lap was my fastest and I managed to catch a few people (from other classes) that had passed me earlier.  I finished 13th out of 13 finishers, so a DFL for me, so be it, I had fun, felt stronger then my last race, beat my time goal, tested out some new parts, went faster each lap, had an Ave HR of 176  for the race, figured out what I need to work on and know what my strengths are and got to finally meet more TWWers.  Overall, it was a good day and feel at least, for me, I'm in better shape then I normally am for this time of year.  So now it's on to the Sea Otter and hopefully the NVDC.

 

Loren Thomas-

At the first Fox Cup Race a few weeks ago I got
spanked but thought "must have been a bunch of experts
sand-bagging".
I got spanked at the CCCX last year, but figured that
this being my second race of the season, I would fair
a little better.
Lined up with a pretty big group of 19-34 sports.  It
looked like at least 20.  Down the paved road we go
and it is very much unlike any sport race I have done.
 We are all just spinning along really SLOW.  The guy
next to me starts talking about how slow we are going.
 At first I thought "this is cool, my legs get to warm
up", but then I realized that this type of start was
closely ressembling what I have heard about road
races.  So I realized I was racing a bunch of roadies!
I am perfectly happy to count 14 riders in front of me
as we enter the single track.  At the first climb, I
passed all but 4, but one by one riders went by me
until I was back in 15th.  Before I know it, the class
behind me is passing me.
I am about 100 ft back as we approach the long paved
road, so I try to close the gap to get some draft
action.  The guy in front of me is also closing a 50ft
gap, so I have 150ft to close.  I thought it was
possible until I was 3/4 to the dirt and still had
50ft.  That sucked.
I just take it easy knowing it is a long race and that
is all my legs can do anyway, but then Ron Castia
comes up behind me (warming-up) and starts
heckling/encouraging me to catch the riders in front
of me.  I did and tagged along for half a lap.  Got
some good drafts in, but couldn't hold the pace.
I worked on getting drafts on both of the longer paved
sections for the rest of the race.
I didn't cramp or bonk, but I just didn't have any pep
for this race.  I guess the six rides I have been on
in the past 2 months just isn't enough??
I ended up 10th/13 finishers.  I'm curious how my time
compares to the rest of the group.  I am hoping it was
a pretty tight race.  I noticed that for the first two
laps, the lead group was pretty tight packed.
So with Sea Otter fast approaching, I hope to get
three more rides in.  That probably won't put me on
the podium, but hopefully it will keep me in front of
the SS crew.

Loren

 

 

Franck Mangin-

  First race of the season for me. I've been commuting on the bike
several times a week for 2-3 months now and I was really curious to see
how this translated in terms of racing fitness.
Well it looks like either this isn't such a great plan, or everybody
else has been doing the same -(

The plan was to take it easy, but as usual I started way too fast. I
kept Rich in sight for the first 20mn and even passed him towards the
end of the first lap. A few minutes later I blew up and had to watch
10-15 riders - including Rich - go by while spinning in my granny ring
trying to recover some strength.

The next lap was better, with a major catch: I would battle it out with
a couple riders for 1/2 lap, passing them on the steep climbs while they
passed me back on the flats... until we hit the road stretches. It took
me a couple of those to understand what hit me; in about 3-4 secs the
4-5 riders in front & behind me had formed a paceline and had left me in
their dust several hundred feet behind.
I you want to get some road racing tactics lessons the CCCX is
definitely the place -)

Only on the last lap did I manage to hang on to one of those guy's wheel
(after the race he mentioned that "I'm the only one in my club who's got
a mountain bike"... no kidding). I even managed to pass him on the long
downhill coming back towards the parking, and despite sucking his wheel
again on the next stretch of road I had to give up and let him and three
others go.

Really fun race overall, the descent was super fast and fun, and the
competition is as tough as ever...

Franck
 

 

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