in a few more words:
charlie, jay, and i traveled to rockaway with no naive illusions of a crit-like race and dry chamoises (how the hell do you pluralize that?). it'd been raining for 24 hours, it rained on the way there, and it rained while we warmed up. there was a mild drizzle as we lined up.
all 3 of us started on the front line, with chaz starting brilliantly to get himself in 2nd wheel in a field of about 12. jay and i went back and forth for a lap, but it soon settled into a suffer-fest of riding tempo and barely moving forward. then, holy crap, the sun came out! at the finish, charlie got 2nd, i got 5th, and a fast-closing jay got 6th. charlie's prize was accelerade.
just as eskimo's have dozens of words for snow, we cyclocrossers could fill an entire dictionary with terms describing mud. this course had all of them... there was soupy mud on the switchbacks that looked scarier than it was, as the ruts disappeared as soon as you chose your line. there was gravely mud that was terrifically fast. there was slightly grassy mud that sucked the power out of your legs, there was incredibly grassy mud that made you feel like you were trackstanding, and somewhere on the course, there was a section of mud with every ratio of grass to mud in the spectrum. there was on-camber mud (which was fun, and surprising, as i'm used to evil off-camber), and there was mud so thick and peanut-buttery that your front tire movements made the amusing sounds of flatulence. there was mud so full of sand that, well, suffice it to say that if it put grooves in our rims and shaved the sidewall of charlie's tire, it can do some damage to the skin you land on when remounting. 'nuff said.
definitely a crazy race, and one i'd do again, in any conditions. that's one of the great things about 'cross... not many of us excel in mud, but we all love it!
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