Erdinger Grand Prix of Gloucester Cross

Wow what a weekend. They don't call Gloucester the Superbowl of Cyclocross or the New England Worlds for nothing. The cats in New England know how to put on a race. The course was awesome,the crowds were awesome, the setting was awesome, and the beer tent charged up the fans by mid afternoon to a frothy roar.


Gloucester Cyclocross Seat Cam from colin reuter on Vimeo

First I need to give out a very public thanks to pal Richard Sachs. You'd be hard pressed to name a team that has the palmares as his this last decade winning multiple National Championships and always having a competitive elite program of men and women. To be able to tag along with him and see how he does things on race day will pay dividends as we travel to bigger and better races. And we're all a little better off knowing his wife The Lovely Deb.



My races went pretty well considering everything. Not wanting to race the early race I lined up at 10am both days with about 125-130 B Masters. I don't think we got that many racers in all our categories combined in the FL series so that was a new experience. When The gun went off I was able hold my position for the first 1/2 lap but would begin to fade to my own pace once we started hitting the hills and barriers. One thing I noticed is nobody pulls away from me on the technical turns and downhils. Years of riding an MTB always kept me close to the other racers in those parts of the course only to get motored on the flat sections. Saturday I was scored in 25th place, keeping intact my streak of questionable scoring. Since my placing was so muffed at Webster-Roubaix I decided it was Karma and would gladly take the result.

Sunday I rode a better race and placed 95th out of 129 starters. Was the scoring right, who knows? I do know I rode a better race. I was able to stay on the gas the whole race compared to Saturday which saw me fade the last lap big time. Sunday's course was harder too with a very steep run up. One thing to mention is tire pressure. I dropped my tire pressure 2 psi Sunday to 30 front and 32 rear based on advice I had gotten from Sachs the night before. I told him that on Sunday I wanted to really kill the corners and the only thing he said was drop your pressure. It worked, thanks.



Gosh darn it would be hard to improve on the weekend. If possible I'll be going back next year. Gloucester is an event not to be missed.

Next week is Savannah Cross which will be the return of young pals Will Willis and Michele Blake to our cross team. I am certain I'll have a podium shot of one or both of them and JP Russo will get another top 10 in Men's B's and will be podium material too if he does the Junior category. Till next week.....