Pieman Wraps Up Stellar First Year of Cyclo Competition

The report below was submitted by Pieman:

The picture on the right by Gary Burkholder captures the essence of the last cyclocross race of the season in northern Ohio. Mud, ice, and rain were the order of the day. This was also the last race of the six- race series, and my last race until March, although I hear there are a couple of mountain bike time trials in Michigan in January and February. I raced in five of the six races, and the miss of the first race ended up costing me third place overall in the Intermediate Masters (40+) division. In this particular race, each lap was about 2 miles of icy double-track, muddy single-track, swampy grass sections, and a short stretch on the road. For those not familiar with cyclocross, it's a race run mostly off road, with a couple of barriers to jump over. The races are usually run in the cold, the sport is very popular in northern Europe where it's cold all the time, and it's becoming more popular over here.

The race was at Boughton Farm in Copley, Ohio, and was the second race there this season. The first race was run in slightly warmer weather but much muddier conditions. In this race, I targeted a guy I figured would finish in third place in my race and tried to stay within striking distance to see if I could grab second place to move up into third in the overall points, but third place was just a bit faster than me (as he was all series). Like everyone else in the race, I crashed at least three times and on another occasion my front wheel kind of washed out and I ran into a tree, but the gap I had opened on fifth and sixth was big enough to let me finish fourth. Last week, in the mud, I finished fifth after carrying my bike the last third of a mile after I ripped my rear derailleur off in the mud so finishing on my bike and riding pretty fast was a real pleasure. I didn't want my last race of the year to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

In the overall series, I tied in total points with third place but he had more points coming into the last race, and that turned out to be the tie breaker. He had raced all six races and I had only raced five, and that proved all the difference. Still, I had a pretty good 'cross season for my first real foray into it on a cross bike. I had a 2nd in one race, and a fourth and a fifth as well.

Overall, I had a pretty good season. I had a couple of top three finishes, several top ten finishes, and I helped teammates finish high in races as well. I also finished well in races from late spring through early winter, which means I was able to keep some form throughout the year. I had scaled down my training in the past weeks, and had used the cross races as my only hard ride of the week. Now I'll start training more intensely so I'm ready to really train hard in January and February so I can hit the spring races hard again. We have great sponsors for next year and it's always good to give sponsors some early season results. My goal is to race about 25 times next year, which should be doable with a weekly criterium that runs 26 times over the course of the summer and is staged about 4 miles from my house!

The picture on the right is of me at the "Cross my heart and hope to die Willoughby Cyclocross Spectacular" in Willoughby, Ohio. I finished 11th or so in the Intermediate category, then jumped off my bike to help run the Expert/Pro race. Our team put on this race so I wasn't too worried about finishing high, just finishing. Notice the lean, hungry look on my face? That's not because I'm weighing my food to drop pounds. It's because our team needs a food sponsor, so if anyone knows of a rep, please let me know. Until next year, have fun.

I would recommend to anyone contemplating competing to just do the races. The more you race, the faster you'll get. That's why I always do an early season race--to see how fast I really have to go in training. I seem to forget over the winter, or maybe I'm not disciplined enough to go that hard in training until I get really shelled. I always also plan on getting totally spanked in a few races, and in at least two races this year I got dropped by the lead pack, chased back on, and finished in the top ten. Everybody gets punished. It's just part of the game.

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