Sunday, December 9, 2007

Whew!

Well, it's over for another year. MSG had a banner year with the largest turnout in the three year history of the event. I don't mind saying I'm very tired. It caught up with me in the final race Saturday. I had a great start and was running fourth or fifth when on the second lap, after the run up, I started to fade. Ended up seventh and was about to be caught by Darryl and Bill, and had it not been for more experience at remounting the bike and clipping in quickly I would have been ninth.

The end of the series is always bittersweet. I'm glad that the pressure's off and that the work is done, but at the same time it's sad that it's over and the camaraderie that has developed over the past three months is at an end until next year. A lot of folks that come out and race I don't see all year until cross season starts again. The good thing is I can concentrate on racing
in January and February and not worry about getting things done each week for the series.

The series final had to be the best one yet. Ironically I was joking with one of our local sponsors last week and he jokingly said "all we need is some rain, mud and cold temperatures" the forecast on Thursday of that week for Saturday was sunny and 60. Boy,
I'm gonna
become a weatherman since it's the only job I know of where you get paid to be wrong 95% of the time. Of course I was glad they were wrong since I like racing in the mud. Finally some semi Belgian conditions. As the day progressed the misty rain kept falling and the ground got muddier. Mud+Cross rider = crashes. Lot's of folks were eatin' mud pies as it got slicker. It was great.

The most fun of the day was during the Single Speed race. At the start we surprised the SS crew with a short cut option. The only drawback was, you had to eat a Debbie Cake before taking the cut which cut about 20 seconds of the lap. First lap, Andy Applegate came running over the barriers and grabbed an oatmeal cake. Almost every lap riders took the short cut, and It wasn't long until everyone fig
ured out that it was the Swiss Roll that you wanted since it was small and soft and it went down fast. Each lap, at the beginning of the barrier section the call went out "swiss cake, swisss caaaake!!! No one threw up but there were some jittery Single Speeders at the cookout.

The cook out was huge with over 100 people. Hot dogs and Hamburgers were flying ar
ound Meredith Pavilion. We had a raffle blowout too, with about 20 items, including a Reynolds carbon fork and the grand prize a Complete Redline Conquest bike. It really was a big year and just writing this I'm forgetting all the work and looking forward to the good times next year. I really appreciate all the herculean efforts put in by all the volunteers and my co organizer Eric, I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks to all the folks who came from all over to race. Hope to see you all at MSG 2008.

PS: To see more cool CX pics click here and go to Bart Nave Photography.