So… what is ‘cross?

Some refer to it as a cross country race on a bicycle with obstacles…

The londonist sourced someone describing it as “Imagine running a bike race on an army assault course, and then throw in a bit of mud wrestling with the occasional hurdle. Mix these elements together and you’ve got the essence of cyclo-cross (often known simply as ‘cross).”

It’s from Belgium they say… and yes it is awesome. I suggest getting on youtube and doing some soul searching.

You can start here.

Training the other day in caz, footage by nilsson!

Tonite is the first nite of the CX practice / fun over at Longbranch. Come and ride at the informal gathering or awesome.

These words from the fingertips of Skinny Phil…

This past weekend was a nice double of races for BTB.

On Saturday the Mello Velo / Middle Ages / BTB Cycling Team was out in full force with Fitz, Niel, Doug, Marcus Wes, Bob, and I rockin’ the green and black argyle.

With many first official road races the crew brought home a bunch of the hardware. Nearly sweeping the 20-25 age group awards, Fitz 1st, Randy 2nd, random 3rd, Neil 4th, and Doug 5th! Wes and Bob also placing well in their age groups and Randy(I) won the prime at some point when I was riding off the front of the group coming back in earning a sweet craftsmen socket/tool kit courtesy of Raby’s Ace Home Center.

Tour de Loop: 30 mile results

Nilsson spotted that the Syracuse Post-Standard photographers were there and snapped a little footage of the beginning of our race. Check it out here for photo or video.

As far as a race recap, it was a blast having so many teammates able to work together and hangout. Fitz and I had a rough plan of either trying to drop the peloton or hang in and do a fancy lead out / sprint. We sat in only slightly pushing the pace along for the first half of the race putting in some fun little attacks and seeing if anyone wanted to play.. Then sliding back to the pack, after the half way point we put in a little attack and fitz pulled me towards a hill until momentum took me past him and he says “Good Luck!” … though I wasn’t planning on going quite yet, with such an earnest wishing of luck I couldn’t let it go to waste. So I attacked the next series of hills and with a little help from Scott for the Y who out of no where revealed he was right with me and was kind enough to take a pull but didn’t quite hang as I sought to vanish from sight. There was someone with a helmet cam so I’ll perhaps be able to see if I succeeded, though with about 4 miles to go I felt the pack coming back and upon a backward glance, they were definitely gaining so rather than surging I dropped back to perhaps put in a little lead out sprint teamwork of sorts with fitz, however the windy finish didn’t lend itself to easy positioning.

We got in decent enough positioning for the finish however not the best, being boxed in for a moment, a couple lucky breaks and ending up just behind the first wall of the front of the sprinting pack some day light opened up. As I went to sprint through it with a surge of adrenaline, just as soon as the whole opened the guy to my immediate front left got out of his saddle for a final surge aswell, and his weight shifting from the saddle swung his rear wheel back toward mine were they met and were smoothly rubbing metal wheel on wheel contact of some sort, with hairs of a centimeter away from the rubber of my tire making contact with the little nub of the quick release on the drive train side of his rear wheel. For fear of causing an end over end terrible end to a fun race I merely yelled jibber-jabber, with no words formulated, just yelling noise and pulled off my attack to let him pull forward and get my wheel out of harms way, killing my sprint momentum but saving many from unpleasant pavement encounters.

All in all it was a blast!

A good time was had by all, and the post race party back at Variety Studios / BTB Headquarters was excellent complete with the “brewers choice, heaviest six pack ever brought” furnished by Middle Ages Brewing, consisting of the following growlers: 2 Wit, 1 Double Wit, 1 old Marcus, a Wailing Wench and 1 Middle Ages Pale Ale.

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Sunday – Delta Lake Tri to be blogged-about soon…

Until then you can see results, know that Bob came back for the double and did very well. I got 3rd overall after a silly turn around in the swim, wrecking going into t2 attempting a cyclocross dismount, or check out the article on the Rome Sentinel.

Born to Tri, 2010 – Asbury Park, NJ from Just Jake Creative on Vimeo.

Check it out the Born to Tri folks just sent out an email, just jake creative out of brooklyn put together a video of the race. You can see Sarah’s bike seat right off the start and my Mello Velo aero helmet on the rack… then see us get the awards!

Thursday evening we will be previewing the course as a team, roll out at 5pm. Meet at Rudy’s in Oswego if you’d like to check out the course before the Tour de Loop on Saturday.

Make sure you send in your registrations. My understanding is that there is no day of registration.

Then come up to Oswego to race with / against, or just to see the BTB – Mello Velo – Middle Ages cycling team in action. Or just come by the BTB – Variety Studios headquarters later down on Route 80 down by Beak n’ Skiff in LaFayette /  Otisco for the post-race party!