Wow, can't believe it. The season is already over, it feels like I just am getting the hang of this cyclocross thing. Well, another great season in the books...this year has by far been the best season that I have ever had.
WI State Champs was the last race of the season for me and it certainly ended with a bang.
GEO, Jen,
FRYE and myself drove out to Hales Corners, WI to see what this race was all about. After arriving, it was clear that the course was great because it certainly attracted a lot of people including olympian, world champ and former PRO mountain biker Travis Brown.
We were able to catch some of the W's Cat 4 field, which
JD won, and Frye and I registered and then scoped out the course. When I walked the course, it looked tough but not crazy hard. A flat, windy start led into a set of 4 barriers right around a corner which led into some more windy turns and some more flat stuff.
The backside of the course was where the really tough stuff was. After crossing a bridge and a few sets of hairpin turns, the hill climb stared back down at you. By the time I had hit the course, the climb was super greasy and was really tough to pick a good line without losing any traction. After climbing the hill, you did a 180 and went straight down that sucker. I was powersliding my 34mm tires the whole way down. Another few hairpin turns led into a sharp corner and a set of uphill barriers. A quick hop off the bike, a few steps and a hop back on put you on the last quarter of the course.
As usual, my stomach was in knots at the beginning...deciding between sprinting the start for the hole shot or sitting back and hopefully catching back up through the race. You can even see my apprehension in this picture. The gun went off, I chose to sprint and somehow managed to sit 4th wheel into the first set of turns.
I don't know how those other guys were going so fast at the start, but I nearly threw up just trying to keep up the first incline with them. There was 3 guys up front, another rider 1 or so seconds back and then me behind him.
I busted my ass to hop up a spot and closed the gap in a downhill
section. We crossed the first bridge and hit the twisty section with some decent speed.
The big ass uphill was tough and I saw 2 of the guys infront of me slow, so I dug deep and pulled around them. I followed the leader through the downhill and passed him right before the uphill barriers.
I saw that I had a gap and buried my head to put in some time when I was able to. From there, I rode solo for 2 laps, with Henry Loud from
Team Pegasus hot on my heels. Henry and I battled for a while, but my 2 lap solo stint started to kick in and he began to gap me. I relaxed a little because there was a big gap between me and the next guy...knowing that Henry was from IL eased my tension, because even if I didn't win I would still hold the state title.
I really did try to close the gap between Henry and myself, but it seemed that I could only hold a steady 5 seconds behind him. On the last lap, I concerned myself with the menacing train of guys looking to plow my ass down and take the state title from me. I distinctly remember Kevin Sparrow from that group yelling "buddy, we're coming to get ya!".
That certainly kicked my ass into gear, I ripped up the last climb with an all out effort that
would either push me to win it, or push me over the edge and lose it. I rolled the dice and they fell in my favor. 2nd place is first loser, or in my case...WI State Champ.
We stuck around for the men's P/1/2 race to see TBrown and a few friends rip it up. Here are some great pictures of the race, beer handups and a few extras from my race. Also, check out my
FLICKR if you want to see some more photos.
Tristan Schouten, Men's P/1/2 State Champ taking a dolla hand-up like a champ
Same here with Bill Street, right before he stuck this into his G-string. And yes, that is a dual-handup...ONE DOLLAR AND A BEER!
The Bandits at work.
