Cross Worlds Y3 Report #7

Friday was spent attended to and doing some official duties.

Course
As you recall in Report #6 the UCI was holding fast on the length of the first straight away. We had it measured at 110m they said 180m and were not going to budge. I send a total of 3 e-mails to 2 people explaining my view on it.... gently. The e-mails I got back suggested that the course would not be changed. Last night at the end of the managers meeting the chief commisaire added very casually that the start would be pushed back another 40m. He then talked to me afterwards and said that he had another look at it and asked someone on a bike to measure it (if you know holland you know that the bike computer would probably be accurate) and they got 160m so he had them add another 40m. Pretty amazing considering everyone said that the UCI would never change it! Hopefully it helps our guys and girls take a few more spots before the first technical grass sections.

Team Meeting
As a race director, it is good to see that even at the top level of sport, a world championship, that all the levels of the organization still need to help out and work on mundaine level tasks. During the managers meeting the chief technical assistant was filling out parking passes for all the teams and labeling the pit passes with post it notes. You would think that this would have been done a while back. Perhaps that is how they have always done it but it was good to see that the top guys helped out on every level of the race.

Bungalow Park.
Things are filling up around here and there are more and more people. Our little complex is now full and I think that pretty much the whole complex with over 200 units is occupied in the last day. Friday nights there were parties going on all over the place and we had to leave the main complex as it was so smokey as everyone was lighting up while they were drinking down. I was pretty smelly when I got back to our place and had to put my clothes outside in -5 to air them out. It really is staggering to see how many people still smoke over here.

Saturday Morning
Again and as always.....waiting for people to get up. We have Ryan and Mike's Bikes ready for Pim and Bert to arrive to give them one last check over. Mike bought some new tires yesterday to give him a bit more traction so Pim spent the day doing a glue job on them. They look perfect and straight. Years of practice. Ryan is using my Zipp Wheels with 34mm tires and he was pretty pumped about it yesterday in practice. They just have more traction that what he has been using. Mike is also using my bike as a back up incase there is a problem with his. He went to move the seat yesterday and discovered that we had exactly the same saddle height.


Saturday afternoon.
Mike's Report (JR Male)
Man what a race!! I wasn't to sure how I would finish after the Hoogerheide disaster last weekend (second last place). After some good nights sleep, some good training rides and some
really competitive bowling i was good to go. After riding the circuit yesterday I discovered supermans are not easy to do (I'm sure you will hear that story from Wendy or Ryan) and my Tufo tubbs where not going to grab on the frozen dirt, so i had to take a chance and change the tufos to Dugast less than 24 hours before my race. Our dutch mechanic Pim did a stellar one shot glue job and the tyres are stuck down good. It was not until after the race that Pim admitted he was a little worried. I now realize you don't need skills to rail slippery corners like the pros, all you need are some Dugast tubbs from cyclocrossworld.com. I was called to the line in the second row which was awesome because there was only 200 meters to the first corner (would have been 150 but Norm put his foot down at the managers meeting and would settle for nothing less than the rules). So my start was very good, I was 12th onto the dirt and rail'in my Dugasts through the corners. I learned quickly last weekend that you have to be aggressive and race with your elbows as well as your legs, make it really sketchy when someone tries to pass. I planned to have a good start and limit my damage throughout the race, and thats exactly what I did. I could not believe the massive amounts of spectators lining the circuit today. The constant noise pushes you around like an invisible force, it really is incredible. I heard my name all over the place. People here are super excited to see Canada out here racing cross, all over the the coarse I heard Go Go Canada. In the end I was 2 minuten and 19 seconds back in 31st place. Thanks to Pim, Bert and Norm my bike worked flawlessly, and Thanks to GRein's buddy Rob my feet thawed out nicely. 13 months after it's start, my season is finally over, and it's time to eat Fritter snacks and drink some Dutch beer with my parents who have become party hard cyclocross fans.


Norm's Note: the crowds were HUGE today for the Saturday races. Usually they are much smaller which means that they could be absolutely MASSIVE tomorrow!

Ryan's Report (U23 Male)
Coming later.