Saturday's (Nov 3) East Bay Race Cancelled

I haven't updated the Calendar yet, but Bob L wanted to make sure everyone knows that Saturday's East Bay race has been cancelled.

I am THIS Close to Disabling Anonymous Comments on All Blogs

You may notice that there are a bunch of deleted comments on the NCNCA CX News blog. That is because, apparently, some of you need censoring.

In general, I am all for allowing anonymous comments, because it allows you to post comments while maintaining your privacy and security - and in general it works very well. But there are a few bad eggs out there - and you know who you are - that hide behind "anonymous" to post crap that you wouldn't otherwise say to any of your fellow community members.

Don't get me wrong, I love discourse, dissenting opinions, and we want to hear them and allow you to contribute without fear of retribution. But if you can't handle the responsibility, you will lose it. I don't have time to police these blogs continuously - so if censoring lewd, homophobic, racist, and/or otherwise offensive comments starts to become a daily thing, I'll disable your ability to do so - and we'll all lose out.

BTW, a big THANK YOU to all of the folks that contribute intelligent and constructive comments to our blogs - both anonymously or otherwise. You keep our site lively, entertaining, and informative...

SURF CITY UPDATE: look out for the pee-wees

Is it Spooky Yet?
By olafvanderhoot in SantaCruz

1:04pm, Thursday before race weekend ... phone call from Soquel HS administrator to missPromoterSabineDukes prompts the following conversation:

ov: So, what you're saying is that some emergency in pee-wee football-land caused a last minute re-scheduling of a few pee-wee football games to the facility we've had rented for Surf City these past months?

missdukes: yes. you're cute when you're wordy.

ov: don't distract me. What will we do about foot traffic, and car traffic, and if we play "traffic" too loud during the C Women start...

missdukes: i'm sorry, you're going to have to take that skinsuit off if we're having this conversation.

ov: but, it was ... my lunch ride.

- - -


Moral of story ~

those who wish to attend this weekend's Surf City Madness (be sure to click on "latest news"), you will need to attend to the following strongly worded suggestions (dnc speak):

1. please park in the lot to your immediate left as you enter Soquel HS. Park down low and far away and let the pee-wee folk have the choice spots up close (no jokes about who needs the walk'ercise, please).
   
   
2. please don't litter, please be respectful of pee-wee folk and do not buzz them or make them feel at all uncomfortable with walking to their venue - the encircled football fields - that we don't use anyway.
   
   The pee-wee folk will be completely separate from us on SHARED PUBLIC LAND/FACILITIES.
   
   and that's so cool.
   
   Personally, I will find it very pleasing that so many pee-wee folk will be able to look out and see us pedaling our bikes around with such grace and power. I hope some electrolyte-Elite will lay something down dramatic and tail raising ... causing a few gasps of appreciation from the pee-wee passer's by.
   
   
   HOWEVER, as we all know ... what this is ~ is a great opportunity to work with the community to improve biker'ness understanding amongst them ... the poor heathens.

see you there.

NCNCA CUP #2 and CCCX weekend

it's damn good training ... if you survive it.
-

LaLaLloyd took Round 2 of the NCNCA Cup presented by Sycip. She shot off the front from the gun and kept the throttle on a fair bit on a day you know she had to have some fatigue in her legs. Saturday she raced with the Elite Men down at the CCCX sufferfest ... oy, what a kill machine that course was ... Rachel was solid in the top 15 most the day against the boys, but a small lap miscalculation had the men doing 70 minutes and that was just too much for her - so she pulled out and huddled in a ball of ouch for awhile before driving back Marin-way with DJ Snead and Barbarella.

Speaking of the Barb, CCCX was another good sign that the Queen of the Galaxy is fighting her way back into world caliber form. For the first time in awhile, we were able to see her ride off the front of a race and test herself against the rigors of solo pedaling. Flying lone star in a cross race is such a mental test ... harder than being off the front in a crit or road race. In cross, you've got too many thousands of moments per second when your body screams for a stop to the pain, a million pleas, silent demandss from every cell ... to rest.

but you can't.

At CCCX there was a TON of uphill road pedaling and Barb was looking smooth and powerful off the front. But behind, CalGiant's Josie Beggs and HRS RockLobster's Stella Carey joined efforts and were eventually able to reel in Howe. With just over a lap to go, Stellar put in a hit on the road climb to try and whip away from the other two riders, shoving Beggs into a bit of bother near the top of the climb. But, somewhere in the swishy slopes of the single-track backside, Beggs would reconnect in a rush and we would be witness to the best finish yet of our cross season.

Stellar muscled her way into the lead as they dove into the final few hundred meters of single track. She erupted out of the trees and pushed it through the final two tight, duffy turns before the finish, giving the crowd a nice little fist pump as she won the race. Howe was a hair behind, with Beggs just nipped out but still taking home cash from the CCCX crew.

Great race. GREAT race.

and i don't know if you'll notice in the pic above ... but that is, in fact, the one and only Gina Hall straddling a cross bike again. Talk about a day of royalty returned ...
-

The men's field saw Mark Noble take another Elite event as he was able to outsprint Lobsters Wyandt and O'dell. Big Berry Robinson was 4th, keeping him on top of the CCCX Series leaderboard, but being hounded by za'Wolf and O'dawg.

In the NCNCA Cup Series, DJ Snead put a stamp on his lead by taking the Sacto stop on Sunday. The Hagen Park course is definitely a keeper, in my book. It's a very, very tough circuit that offered no rest whatsoever. Well, that's not true ... i went poking over the barrier sections as slowly as possible to try and eek out a few seconds of recovery. Because out on the course, it was full throttle action as you bumped and humped over grassy knolls and barbaricly evil green carpets.

The Elite Men's race was all Lobster, taking 4 out of the top 5, with only the Falconer steeling himself into 4th. When Cameron is on, he's one hell of a pedaler. He hung with Snead and Wyandt most the race, but fell off late and was just nipped by a wicked sprint from O'dell.

I was 5th, riding with more than a little grimace as my fitness and collarbone both were asking me what the f$%k i was doing out there. We were in a small group with Arete's Mack Chew, the two uber-juniors from Spine Kaiser and Brooks, Clif Bar's Lance Doherty, and young Matt Obregon out of Sacto.

It was a good crew to ride with and luckily we didn't have any real mechanicals to slop us around (easier day for the RockLobster team wrench, Rye Bontrager).

Kaiser did have a little bobble on one of the turns and Doherty was cool enough to ask us to slow a bit for him to get back on. It took all of 6 seconds for Cody to re-join, but it was still a very classy thing for the guy to do. It must be the Clif Bars that chill somebody out like that.

Anway, the turnout for Round 2 was very good and the darkOneMaile produced a good venue and challenging course. I'm looking forward to seeing how Round 3 at Surf City will change things up in The Cup standings. Tom Feix looks in control in the 45's. Colleen Wanty, Kathleen Hannon and Sarah Maile are all close to the podium for the Elite Women. The 35 A's sees a tight battle brewing between Myall, Kammeyer, Coates, and Maile. And there's more ... but i'm out of time for postings.

stupid work

Cup Runneth Over

At InterBike this year, got to take a look at some of the Sycip super models ... jayzus, those were sweet rigs. And with them giving away a CrossDresser frame in the Cup Series ~ it just gets the juices flowing and i'm going to have to make the trip up to Sacto for the numero duo race.

But before that, it's classic CCCX time on Saturday. awww yeah, park a half-mile away, find the start in some boony section of Fort Ord(inance) and ride loops around the happy trails for a couple hours.

that's the real deal, baby.
-

CCCX is the local's series where we fight it tooth and nail, but smile all the time 'cuz it's low-key laid-backery. I was wishing some laid-backery upon a few individuals at the Pilarcitos opener last weekend, by the way. What the frack? People warming up on the course like a-holes ~ actually SPRINTING with races during their warmup? Fighting for position on the course with racers during a warmup? Riding 5 feet behind racers during a warmup? So, so uncool.

This is the stupid behavior that must be kaboshed. I'm in favor of Pilarcitos' decision to stop all warmup on the course while races are in progress. It's a penalty we should ALL pay until we're able to police ourselves into acting like gawdamn cross'ers and be courteously cool again.
-

Anyway, back to CCCX ~ JRobo has man-handled the first two events in the Elite boys division. But with his hitman, AJM, out of action for a few weeks - there might be enough chink in armor exposed for the Lobster crew to David that Strawberry Goliath. I'll be there swinging like a 9 year-old ... trying to set up one of the sea-foam boys for a win. Za'Wolf, O'dawg, and DJ Snead all have a decent chance of taking the series away from the big man ... but, it'll be uphill boulder pushing for sure. JRobo is skinny and fast right now.

Speaking of skinny and fast ~ Stellar is leading the Elite Femmes and I'm seeing her getting nothing but quicker these next couple months. She's fixing her sights on Nationals for the first time in awhile and all of us heathens will be going nutz with the cowbells for her.

Stella is NorCross.

With Kerlin skipping over to Belgium for a little ol' World Cup ... CCCX looks to be a battle between Stellar and the Bellas. VB riders Fitzimmons, 'Tash Perry, and Barb are all within striking distance for the series title, but we'll know more after this weekend who is in the driver's seat.

But back to Kerlin ... with her heading across the pond, it looks like the NCNCA Cup might be firmly in the hands of LaLaLloyd. Lloyd is racing the Pilarcitos series with the B Men .. knowing that she needs the hargey-bargey training to get herself ready to take on Katherine the Great at Nationals. But, in the Cup series - she's racing with the women and after Sunday's Round 2 ... we'll get an idea of who will be challenging her for that title.

(will Shelley Olds race this weekend? Cal Giant domination on the horizon? Metzger, Beggs, Olds ~ holee shyte, that's like ... the Charlie's Angels of Cross)

The Men's Elite title looks to be spinning tunes in DJ Snead's head at the moment. HRS Rock Lobster has Wyandt, Josh, and O'Dell hovering around the podium ... but there's always hombres like the Falconer and TThompson to darkhorse things up. We'll see what Round 2 offers us.

Anyway, i better get back to work ... see you all out there this weekend. CCCX will be in PERFECT conditions with a nice dousing of rain softening up the happy trails. It's gonna be brraaap-central on Saturday. And then we'll get to check out the new grass up in Sacto to finish out the weekend.

paradisimo.
~m