Even without flags, insanity in the middle
By JER–Part 2
“Did you say ‘psychocross’?”
This is the response I get when I invite a friend to come along with me to the race. With competition just hours away, instinct kicks in and I’m scrambling for a groom. Otherwise, who’s going to pin my number on or hold my bike when I have to use the portaloo?
“Cyclocross. You ride your bike around a muddy field and sometimes have to get off and carry it over stuff.” On second thought, maybe ‘psychocross’ was a serviceable description.
My whole body aches as I put the bike back on the rack. I’m feeling every moment of yesterday’s clinic – every remount and dismount and hill climb and all those times I hefted my bike up the stairs. Now I’m going to do it all again. For real, in a crowd, against the clock.
I know next to nothing about cross races, although I asked a few questions at the clinic. More specifically and perhaps not too intelligently, I asked “So do they give out ribbons?” There was a brief moment of silence followed by snickering laughter. I heard someone actually say, “Ribbons. Ha.” Then someone else put two and two together. “You’re one of those horse people who spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a horse and a truck and trailer so you can go to a show to get a ribbon. Right?” More laughter.
To add insult to injury, one of the European guys in the group wasn’t following at all. “Ribbons? What are ribbons?”
Me: “Okay. Forget ribbons. What do you get if you win?”
Aaron: “You mean like, how much money?”
Oh, money. That makes sense. Someone notify the horse world.
The Race
The race venue is a dairy farm/petting zoo just across the river. Not too far, I’m thinking, from the cafe that serves my favorite blueberry pancakes. We pull into the parking area and I take a look around. There’s a big mural on the side of a barn memorializing a humongous bovine named Big Bob. A sign points in the direction of ‘The Singing Pig.’ There’s also an ice cream stand but, alas, it’s not open right now. After yesterday’s relentless taunting by the chimes of the Good Humor truck, this comes as an especially cruel blow to me.
All this and cyclocross, too.
Sign-in isn’t for a while yet, so I unload my bike, put on my gloves and helmet and set out to explore the course. The first part is out the driveway and down a gravel road around the barns. Easy enough. Then you go past the gate into the fields and the fun starts. There’s a bone-jarring mini-Paris-Roubaix of cracked concrete followed by the first serious obstacle, two wooden barriers, just like we practiced on yesterday. Hop back on your bike – cyclocross-style, of course – and then turn down a short slope to a narrow 180 turn in slick grass. Back up to the road, which turns into a dirt singletrack and heads into the woods.
Here’s the infamous ‘run-up’ hill that I heard about yesterday. If you think you can pick up some speed at the bottom, you’re wrong. There’s a log across the track that requires a dismount and it’s all one big shoe leather slog from there. At the top, it becomes a fairly technical mountain bike trail. I’m glad I have a mountain bike; I just wish I was a better rider. With tree roots and sharp turns galore, I suspect I could probably negotiate the whole thing faster on foot.
When the downhill part finally comes, it’s one more hairpin and a rocky slope that,despite my chattering bike, is a welcome break. That wasn’t so bad, I’m thinking, as I find myself riding head on into what looks like a maze of tape through a grove of tall trees. With all the white tape and identical trees, it’s like a hall of mirrors. This is fun but I can’t see my next turn until I’m just about on top of it. I’m sensing a potential for mass wreckage here.
Please tell me bikes don’t spook.
A short, steep ramp leads out of the trees and it’s uphill on the gravel road all the way back to the beginning. Not bad at all, I’m not breathing too hard, I’m not too scared by the technical sections, but then I remember I’ll be doing multiple laps.
The parking area is more populated now with cars and bikes and vendor’s tents. It’s a good thing no one gives a rat’s ass what you wear in cross because some of these people have taken ‘show your colors’ to a whole new level of OCD. The kid on a pony with matching everything and purple glitter bell boots has nothing on this lot. There’s one guy all decked out in candy pink and white and another in blue-and-brown plaid. Don’t these people have loved ones to say things like “You’re wearing that today?”
Which leads me to another observation: one of the reasons everyone says men and boys don’t take up riding is because they don’t want to wear breeches. Then explain the appeal of cycling to me. This crowd is at least 95% men and they’re all in tight, revealing, multi-colored clothing and not only do they seem okay with it, they’ve got matching, color-coordinated arm warmers and leg warmers and shoe covers and sunglasses and helmets. Some of them – the sponsored ones – even have bicycles that match their outfits. Imagine if we did that with our horses. Dyeing to match or buying to match would be equally weird. Your vehicle – horse or mechanical – should not be reduced to an accessory.
I sign in and get my number, then someone points me in the direction of the starting line. Cyclists are zooming up and down the driveway, looking focused, like they’re carrying out a pre-race warm-up ritual. Others are tinkering with bike parts that I don’t know the names of. I pedal about for a few minutes but soon run out of ways to look busy. I decide to go ask the starting people how many laps I’ll be riding. That would be useful information.
Starter: “How many laps? We don’t know yet.”
Me: “But the race is in like five minutes. When will you know?”
“Probably when you’re on lap 3.”
Apparently, Kafka has been reincarnated as a cyclocross volunteer. “You mean we won’t know when we start?”
“How can we know? We don’t know how fast the course is riding.”
“But you can’t plan your race if you don’t know how many laps.”
“Plan? This is cross. You just go all-out. Is this your first race?”
I learn that cross races are about duration, not distance. Races vary in length from 30 to 60 minutes – mine, thank god, is 30 – so you ride the number of laps it takes to fill the time.
And everybody finishes on the winner’s final lap. Which mean if you’re at the back and get lapped, you get to ride one less lap than the good people. You are rewarded, in a way, for your ineptitude.
This is very good news. I already love this sport.
When the riders in my category, which is called ‘Citizen’ (I suspect it’s a euphemism), gather at the line, we’re told to ‘get behind a wheel.’ I have no idea what this means but within seconds, everyone except me is standing in a neat grid formation, lined up four across with subsequent rows directly behind. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in no-man’s land, gridlocked into a position that could either be described as free-range or anarchist. Either way, I’m slightly embarrassed. But the starter patiently waits for me to conform, and the man next to me graciously lets me into the line.
On the starter’s ‘Go!’, I drop to the very back. Soon, I’m dead last, which is where I want to be. I have enough to do without worrying about fashion-challenged people on bikes. My goal, as always when I have no idea what I’m doing, is to finish without a letter beside my name. So today, like any responsible rider, I’m aiming for what an eventer would call a ‘slow clear.’
I negotiate the barriers and the 180 turn without issue. The hill is another matter. It’s hard sprinting up while pushing a 30-lb bike, although the people ahead of me with the 20-lb bikes on their shoulders don’t seem to be having an easy time either. I try to ride through the up-and-down singletrack and manage to get through most of it until I hit a tree root. Then it’s off the bike and running again, jumping back on to bounce off a tree, push around a sharp turn with one leg on the ground and slide into the downhill.
At the clinic, Aaron called cross a ‘totally anaerobic’ sport. He wasn’t kidding. I try to catch my breath and pick up speed on the descent, thinking I’m making a good recovery until I look to my left and see the freaking Hall of Mirrors coming up. Oops, forgot about that. I brake to a crawl and attempt to steer through the maze. The riders in front of me have churned up the footing and it’s more difficult than I remember. I get too wide on my final turn and barely make it up the rise to exit the trees.
Onto Lap 2. More of the same but more effort required. My carries have less ground clearance, my remounts have less enthusiasm. I’m wondering when I’m going to get lapped. I hope it’s soon because the next time up the hill is going to hurt really bad. This round, I run the entire mountain bike section and catch up to someone who’s doing the on-off thing. My front wheel skids out on the downhill and I think I’m going to crash but somehow, I stay upright.
When I get to the maze, I’m about to be passed by the higher-category men’s race that started before mine. These are serious people with outfits to match. The gracious and rule-abiding thing is to yield and so I do. I refrain from making comments like “You’re much too big for pastels.” I also get to watch quite a few low-speed spills, riders sliding under the tape or into trees when they miss a turn. I stick to the safe, wide route and improve on my first lap. I even manage to accelerate out of my final turn but then it’s all for naught when I totally miss the exit ramp.
As I pass the start again, I hear a bell ringing to signal one lap remaining. Which means some people are going to do one more lap than me. Lucky them. I clatter over the concrete chunks one last time then come face to face with two five-foot walls that have sprung from nowhere to block my path. Okay, I exaggerate, but that’s what the barriers feel like now. I half-carry, half-drop my bike over them. I’m trying to look on the bright side: I might be dragging my bike along but at least it’s not trying to stop and eat grass.
As I trudge up the hill, a guy jogs past me with his bike on his shoulder. He’s not very happy. “This isn’t exactly cycling, is it?” he grumbles.
Maybe not, but whatever it is, I’m still having fun, despite my pounding heart and gasping lungs. But that’s another lesson from the world of horses. Any sport, no matter how difficult, is rarely as hard as the toughest moments in riding. I’m talking about hour three in the hunt field on the crazy one that you always swear you’ll never take hunting again. Or when you’re just trying make it past the spooky mailbox on the nuttiest of fruitcakes. Or that ride when you’re close to a breakthrough on your horse’s worst bad habit and you know you can win the war if you can just outlast him. On a bike, if you get tired, you can just stop pedaling. Horses don’t work that way. It takes total commitment. You reach a point of mental and physical exhaustion but still have to find a way to keep going – without letting the horse know how tired and scared you are – until the job is done.
And I’m almost done now. One more time through the maze, struggling to stay focused. One more push up the hill.
I cross the finish line and circle back toward the cars. As I pass the starters, they call out to me – all four of them, almost in unison – “How’d you like your first race?”
I tell them it was awesome. They want to know if I’ll be coming out to race again. “Definitely,” I say. They give me a rousing cheer and I give them a heartfelt thank you. They don’t know it, but they’ve accomplished so much more than merely putting a big smile on my face. They’ve recruited one more convert to the Church of Cross. This is a fine way to spend a Sunday morning.
Already, I’m thinking of asking Santa for a proper cross bike. But not the clothes and colors. I’ll stick to basic black and I’ll ride at the back of the pack until I’m not a danger to anyone except myself. Maybe some day, I’ll even lap someone.
On the way home, we stop for lunch and then, wobbly legs and all, I wander down the street to the ice cream shop. Finally.
