After every CX race I have a tendency to say that was the hardest race I've done. Saturday was Supercross, a fitting name for an event that is legitimately one of the toughest courses around and here's why.
Located due East of Ringwood State Park on the campus of Rockland Community college, you can see the mountains of Harriman in the background on the large rolling campus. The scale of everything around me as I stood in the parking lot was big, the trees, the hills, the parking lots, the school…the 10 Porta John's lined in a row seemed dwarfed by their surroundings. My initial impression was that this is racing on a grand scale.
As I did a warm up lap with Justin, my impressions proved correct, the course was truly incredible. Conditions where dry, turns where sweeping, which required little need for breaking or hard cornering. The climbs where punchy and steep while others where steady and gradual, the other sides of climbs where roller coasters or easy downhills, in between flat sections pointed into the wind and there was an occasional woods section which was not very technical. This all amounted to the course being very pedal-eee, it was wide open, those with an abundance of power can go at it full throttle with no need to let up.
Supercross is part of the Vittoria series which is one of three race weekends, North Hampton MA was last weekend and Warwick RI is the first weekend in December. As the longest standing UCI race in the United States it attracts the fastest racers from the region as well as the bottom feeders like myself. This race jumped on my radar because Sean told me to do it, as one of my go to CX gurus I listen to him, needless to say it was every bit the epicness that he said it would be.
With an abundance of fast guys in my 50+ category, there was little surprise with my 3rd row call up. At the go we raced uphill to some sweeping turns, which were not that sweeping when you try and fit 34 racers through them at once, these moments were the only points in the race where I had to slow with intent, once we thinned out there was no need to grab a handful of break. In under 3 minutes I had completed the prologue section and came through the finish, which began a gradual climb to the barriers. These things require great effort, given the previous climbs, instead of a recovery spin you were faced with keeping the effort on 10 as you tried to dance yourself and bike over these hurdles. After my race I watched other racers come to these barriers and was amazed at the young kids who rode over these barriers like water flowing over rocks. Conversely I also saw racers biff them while running and end up on their ass.
Them Barriers.
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Following the barriers was an off camber gradual climb with good grip which led to a flat, turn, woods, rollers, more turns, another flat and finally THE CLIMB. During the warm up this climb did not feel that difficult however after non stop race pace with no recovery and now having to dig deep to make it to the top of a steep rise, it was the nail in the coffin on a course that was relentless. Some guys ran it, I rode it but barely, for my second lap I backed off a bit before the climb which left me open for attack but I made the time back up and over the climb.
My favorite part of the course was the final woods track, this is where I could recover with less pedalling and braking yet still hold pace. Unfortunately, this section was not long enough, before I knew it, I was back at the finish area grinding the gradual hill and finding myself blowing up from previous efforts. My heart rate would not come down, which left me feeling wasted, I could not attack so I had to go into damage control mode. Maybe I had trained too hard prior to this and was not as fresh as I could be or maybe the course was much harder than anything I had raced previously. The end result was me getting 17/34, while I felt like I did not have my best stuff, it was good enough given the abundance of regional talent as well as competing on a demanding classic CX course.
I'm a fan of the drops, get low, in tech and downhill, lay off the breaks ride it out and hold a tight line. The back wheel may slide a bit but that's ok.
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So, after 5 CX races this year I'll compare Mtb racing to CX. If you poured 12oz. of mtb racing into a glass beaker and placed it over a CX Bunsen burner, you would boil off the technical bits and be left with 4 oz. of pure power. I've done well with mtb racing because that's what I do a lot, I have tech skills. With CX racing it's more about power and less so technical ability. Yes there is a finesse to handling a CX bike, those who have power and skills win the race. At this point going all in on power is new to me, CX is like a condensed form of mtb racing. Saturday was my last CX race of the season, next year I'll be back, hungry for some more. Having raced Road, MTB and CX, I'd say CX is the purest form of racing out there. There is no drafting and team tactics, technical riding ability is not highlighted so much, it's mainly about power and going head to head with the guy next to you, which always makes for great competition.
Over the summer I lined up with Dave Kahl and Eric Schlauch at Lewis Morris. I can't match Dave's power and usually loose to him in mtb races, Dave is a top 10 regional finisher in CX. Eric has much power, in the neighborhood of top 5 regional CX guy but not so much tech. I will add that both guys are great to race with and chat with post race.
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