After four days of rain Aumiller and I hit the soggy parcours in Lowell this past Sunday. The course included plenty of power climbs, Arenberg Forest-esque wooded sections, off-camber, S turns, grass, ...but no barriers. Oh yeah, and did I mention mud? In fact, the soggy conditions turned what would otherwise be a fast, gruelling, hard race into one that bordered on the description of "epic".
The Arenberg Forest was most entertaining due to hidden pine roots that tossed riders' wheels asunder, catapulting both rider and bike overboard like rag dolls. Only the lucky could spin through the whole section. By later races the sides of the path had degenerated into a wheel-swallowing bog that was as deep as 8 inches in areas.
After being lined up by our crossresults.com rankings the race took off with no less than two crashes in the first 30 seconds of the race, one including someone pulling out of their pedal at the start, and another crash in a 180 degree turn that involved me running over someone's nice mavic front wheel (sorry). The race settled in and I didn't see Aumiller (or the front of the race for that matter) for the first few laps. I was having a hard time moving up and out of the group of 5 or so I was with on the first and second laps but could tell I was near the front. A few laps from the finish I realized that Matt was at the front of the race and I was about a minute behind. On the last lap I took my one crash of the race on an off-camber downhill S turn. After fixing a bent shifter I hopped back on and chased down the one rider who passed me, making sure to out sprint him on the line and take back the one spot I lost in the crash. Aumiller had an awesome ride to finish third, his first podium! He's been teetering on the edge of getting some results so it's good to see him fulfilling his potential (when mechanicals, crashes, and the bonk don't slow him down!) I was also pleased with getting 12th, my best result in a CX race.
After the C race a cheering section amassed in the Arenberg Forest to taunt, jeer, and cheer riders. Group chants emerged like "RIDE-THE-MUD, RIDE-THE-MUD, RIDE-THE-MUD" (Short and to the point, no?). I got so carried away that I realized my hand was bleeding from some over-excited cowbell ringing, no joke.