Missouri State Cyclocross Championships

I made a trip with the Locke boys down to the Missouri State Cyclocross Championships in Jefferson City this past weekend.  We went down on Saturday and stayed overnight for the Sunday race.  This was by far my favorite venue of the year.  It had a little bit of everything, except sand (not a complaint, for sure).  The course had a lot of climbing, which is good for me since I lost 40 pounds this year.  It rained enough the night before to make the course soft, but not too muddy.  I lined up with the Master’s 40-44 for my shot at a State Championship jersey.  I got a pretty good start and was in the mix for a while, but I had made the mistake of switching wheelsets just before the start.  I decided to go with my Bontrager XXX carbons with Vittoria EVO XM tires, because they were lighter than my 50mm carbon tubulars that have Tufo Cubus tires mounted to them.  Since the mud was not deep anywhere, I figured I wouldn’t need the deeper rims and went with the lighter option.  Unfortunately, I could not climb the big steep hill and had to dismount on it every lap.  I was riding it fine with the Tufo Cubus tires, but the Vittoria’s just couldn’t grab enough traction to get me to the top.  I raced a good race with only one mishap, where I lost traction up the big hill and could not get unclipped in time and fell over.  The impact knocked my saddle sideways and I had to pound it back straight, so lost some time.  Other than that, I rode within my limits and ended up 9^th.  Chris crashed out of his race, with a broken derailleur.  Christopher had a hard fought battle, but ended up 2^nd to take home the Silver medal in the Junior’s race.  Overall a great weekend of racing!!  I look forward to next year’s State Championship in St. Louis.