Zero Traction

In addition to the Nine Ball Diaries, there is another film being made about the 2007 Cross Nationals, called Zero Traction. What an appropriate name! I just read about it on CBR. Watching the trailer was like reliving the race for me, in a way. They show you the sloppy mud, the icy mud, the puddles, and the snow that we encountered, it's all there! Very fun to watch, if you love cross. Or even if you don't.

Registration for CX Nats

Don't forget to register for Cross Nationals on September 15th at 12:01 am! it's going to be a great time!

Finally, the Elite Men.

Finally, I have a chance (by staying up really late) to post some pics of the Elite Men at CX Nationals.

Below is Tim Johnson, about to cross the finish line in first place!

Jonathan Page is rounding the corner (below). He and Tim Johnson were in an intense battle for first place. He ended up second. Notice how bundled up everyone is (except apparently, Page's hand, brrr). Lots of spectators were wearing coveralls, mostly brown Carhartts, to stay warm and un-muddy. This pic is worth it just for the hot pink coveralls in the background. I think Holly needs a pair of these with skulls on them!

Todd Wells, who came in third, is on one of his last laps in this pic. The riders hit this part of the course shortly after the start. While I have better pics of Todd, I thought this one gave you a good view of the park and the pond.

Tristan came in eight place. Congrats Tristan, great finish! That corner had to be a lot harder with people dabbing right in front of you and following inches behind you.

Ooops! Not everyone made it around the corner. This happened to people all over the course, all weekend long! This guy apparently isn't a fan of gloves, either.

Kevin was looking really strong and then all of a sudden he disappeared! Turns out he had bad flat karma that day, as you can see.

Ben had a terrible starting position due to his last minute upgrade (congrats!) to Cat 1. In spite of that, he raced very well and had lots of fun!

Marko LaLonde raced the elite race for his second race of the day, after winning the singlespeed race at 8 freezin'o'clock in the morning! You can see Kevin behind him here.

Alister is another local racer who tackled the elite race after racing the collegiate race earlier. Snow on the front tire here, mud everywhere else.


More pics here.

Fast Company

Holly has some very fast company in a cyclingnews.com gallery from the women's elite race at Cross Nationals last Sunday!!!

U23 Champs Video

Here is Bjorn Selander winning the U23 National Champs, beating Jamie Driscoll at the line. Besides making you seasick (you'll see what I mean), it gives you a good idea of the conditions all the riders faced on Saturday.

Ouch!

Thanks to Lou, here is Ryan T's crash. It is sad to watch his hopes crushed in a brief moment. This explains why we didn't see him on the podium Sunday.

Tough Girls

I was so impressed with Holly (above) for sticking it out in the brutal elite race, even though her hand was hurting from two encounters with a post on Friday. Go Holly!
Devon, winner of most area races this year, just keeps going and going...
Jen G. at the top of the stairs.
Kristin W. seems right at home here.
I think that's Sam under that balaclava!

These pics are from the women's elite race Sunday. Our regional women rock! Men will come later. These aren't as sharp as they should be, probably cuz I took multiple shots all the way up the stairs. I need to work on that. And I am sorry to say, I didn't get all of the area women this weekend. Due to the timing of my race, I didn't get any pics of the women racing on Friday afternoon. Check Madcross.org, which will have more, which will be better quality as well.

See a mud tutorial below.

The short version of my race day in pictures

The really short, short version: Survival. it was all about survival.


There was ice on everything, even the grass sticking out of the snow had ice on it! I love this pic.


There were two sets of super-slippery muddy stairs like this. The mud at the bottom of this one was like quicksand, each time it tried to suck my left shoe right off my foot! I don't know how people like this woman found the energy to shoulder their bikes up this, I sure didn't! (this is not me in the pic) This is one of many types of mud we experienced on Friday.


This is another type of mud found on the course. Wet, goopy mud. This is the last race of the day, a master's men's race.


And here the mud had turned into giant puddles! Splat! This is the same master's men's race at the end of the day.

I don't seem to have a photo of the mud that looked like rutted muddy mud but was really rutted frozen mud. That is probably good because the person in the photo would probably be lying on the ground after being bucked off their bike.

The shoes I raced in. I decided to wear my Lake winter shoes instead of my regular Sidis for various reasons, including cold, mud, and ankle support running and pushing in the treacherous frozen mud ruts. (My front wheel bumped against them alot as it flopped around in the mud, which affected my handling, so they might not have been the best choice from that standpoint.) They kept my feet dry in the puddles. I almost lost one before the stairs!!

The shoes I spectated in later that day. The tops are clean only because my pants covered them. The first few inches of the pants are covered in mud, as well. My toes froze even with toe warmers, so I switched to warmer shoes the rest of the weekend.

Time to hit the Road

It's been a fun weekend. The crazy conditions, constantly changing hour by hour, made for some challenging racing and some very interesting spectating. I don't have nearly as many photos as I had planned, mainly due to the cold, but I will get them up when I get home. It was really nice to have so many people from home to hang with throughout the weekend.

Yesterday made for an exciting day of racing! Congrats to Marko Lalonde for his stellar win in the early morning (frozen!) singlespeed race! Travis Brown, always a strong contender, got second. In the men's elite race, the intense battle between Johnson and Page ended in Johnson taking the win, with Wells in third. In the women's race Katie Compton won, of course, but Rachel Lloyd kept things interesting in her battle for second. Congrats to our area collegiate racers Devon Haskell (4th overall, and possibly 1st in her division. I am told they may have put U of C in the wrong division), Mike Sherer, and others, who did very well in the collegiate events.

It was fun to watch so many of our Il/WI racers in the elite races. I am not going to list them all now, I need to hit the road.

At breakfast this morning I heard that people were teasing last year's elite champ Ryan T. by calling him Ryan Tre-Boo-Hoo, because he gets so upset when he doesn't win. He crashed out of the elite race yesterday when someone hit him head-on when they broke the tape going the other direction and crossed over into his lane. Nasty crash. Someone at breakfast said they thought he broke his elbow. He looked like he was in one piece at the after-party, so I doubt that is true.

Thanks to Julie, Ben, Chris and Kim for treating me to my Birthday dinner on Friday night when we went out with a big group from WI and IL! That was really nice of you guys! We had a great table - dinner was lots of fun.

I hope everyone made it back safely! I hope Julie made it on time to her brother's graduation, as well.

Multiple Personalities

Greetings from Cross Nationals! We have a "moody" course this weekend. What you get one hour might be very different two hours later! Each race has had it's own unique conditions not quite like the one before of after it, as far as I can tell. Frozen, then semi-frozen, then muddy, then downright sloppy complete with small ponds...yesterday was kinda crazy. My race was a churned up rutted mud pit interspersed with frozen skinny-tire-sized ruts, with puddles in the low spots. The mud got worse and worse as thee day went on, with the 45-49 men running through huge puddles in a few places. In some spots the whole course looked like a big, goopy puddle. Steve Tilford ran away with that event, he was way off the front the whole race.

The Wisconsin juniors all did really well, and the WI/IL women all survived, with most doing well Friday. On Thursday alot of IL/WI folks did well in the B races, too. I wasn't in good shape for this race, but I survived. Which I guess is all I should expect having driven all night to get there. It was kind of all a blur. I hope to write more later if I get a chance.

Today we have snow and about 23 degrees (or lower) for the masters men's races this afternoon. A guy in the elevator said the U23 races were pretty snowy and slippery. My guess is that they had a thin layer of snow on top of frozen mud ruts. I am headed out soon to watch the men's master's races. I hope conditions improve for them.

That's it for now... gotta head out to cheer on the guys!

And then there's KC mud....

Seeing as how it's a couple of days before CX Nats, this would be a good time to revisit the many types of mud. I have a feeling many of us are about to become reacquainted with at least one grade of mud this weekend, if not more. I myself am having the hardest time getting ready - other things keep getting in the way. I am almost tempted to stay home.

Good Luck to everyone who is racing at Nats!

And for those spectating, it's going to be a blast. Bring your cowbells. And maybe your toe warmers...