CX - NC VERTICAL STYLE

The next installment of the East Tennessee CX series, MSG, was hosted by Coach Hugh Moran and Mars Hill Cycling Team in beautiful Mars Hill, NC this past weekend. It was a tad nippy at the start but ended a wonderful warm fall day in the 60's. The collegiate class was first on the line at 10am. I was able to warm up pretty good before they took off. The grass was wet and quite slippery on the lower half of the course. Lower you ask? Yes! This course is straight up on the right and straight down on the left. I hear a lot of belly achin' over how much climbing there was but I really liked this course! Any CX race that has true single track incorporated into to it is a winner in my book. Problem is most people don't read my book, bahahahahahahaaa. Another oddness was I saw a many people opting to drop the skinnies for the security of the fatties. There were at least 10 I witnessed that did this. So far I've stayed true to the Niner except for the one race in KnoxVegas. It was flat and catered to a more powerful rider... somethin' I'm not.

I'm NEVER serious at a race...

Here I am... attack from the back. It's worked so far although as soon as we hit the single track they were stacking up like boxcars at a train derailment. I just pedaled on and made more passes than I normally do during the first lap. I was really surprised at how many riders I can never get to during a race that I was now creeping up on. I did give a few good lines away passing some riders though. I managed a top 10 in Masters 45+ but all throughout the race I was thinking I was running 7ish... opps my bad. 9th was in my grasp but a personal thing made me content where I was in 10th. Another story...

I also tried my hand at heckling with the meganphone. I suck at that worse than I do at racing so I think I'll just ride the bike from now on and leave the heckling to the obnoxious errrr I mean semi-professionals. Screaming bad jokes at peeps you hardly know... I'm afraid I may get that guy/girl that didn't take their meds that morning and decide to go postal on me. If I know them I don't feels as bad, some deserve it! BooYa!

The trophies were pimp'n though at MSG #7. I-9 stepped up big time and provided some suuuuwheeeeeeett trophies for 1st place. The kids were going nutszo over these things. I overheard one of the kids asking his parents "Is there a green one? Do I get the green one? Huh?"

Sad thing was that Mars Hill was only hosting Saturday and not Sunday. That left Sunday open and NCCX was hosting at Charlotte. That's a whole day I'd have to burn during dead week where I should be studying instead of racing/traveling. I debated really hard whether to just procrastinate and go or stay home and get some things done with school work and do a short local ride. Maybe if more peeps had decided to go I would have rolled over but since only a couple of the MSG crew decided to go I went with the masses and opted to stay local. I did, for the most part, finish my part of the group project. VSP's, textures, material and a tad bit of lighting completed for the UDK Unreal project this semester. I was pretty frustrated at first but several of the seniors told a bunch of us that this project was way above what we should be doing (more senior level style) and that they were impressed that we made it as far as we did and the work has good quality for first time users. there are a couple of peeps in class that turned out some really great work, the final is due Friday. I'll try to post the video afterwards. Below is just a screenshot of a corner hallway in the building we modeled and rendered.

This weekend will be the final race for the 2012 MSG season. MSG, King and Virginia Intermont are teaming up to host MSG #8 & #9 at Unicoi. I think I get to do a little ref'ing as well since they're going to be a ref short. I'll see if I can keep the fitness motor humming afterwards for the Hendersonville UCI race the following week then a small training race in KnoxVegas before we leave for Madison, WI and CX Nats. After Madison it's Collegiate BMX and I have no clue to how that's going to run. There will be more MTB racing this spring and I hope I hold some of the fitness I have now and build on top of it for next year. We'll see. It's way harder getting into shape instead of staying in shape but most folks already know that.

LAter G...................................