Baby van Vlaanderen: Stringing it Together

This November has been the best month of racing cyclocross in a long time. Two top tens and twice finishing on the lead lap of a UCI race. Here's a little secret. I've never finished on the lead lap of a UCI race more than once in a season and it has been two UCI races in a row. Either I'm getting faster, the fast guys are slower or the courses are longer. Whatever it is, I'll take it.

This run started at the Cycle Smart International, day two. I had a last row start thanks to the random draw and a lot of good riders in front of me. Not surprisingly, they all stayed in front of me for the duration. But I managed to keep the race leaders from catching after an hour. During that hour I battled with some guy from California, rode over a bunch of roots and generally had a fun time. Small victory number one.

I was a little tired of finishing mid-pack at best, so at the Plymouth Festival of Cyclocross, day two, they had a category 2/3/4 race. I opted for that instead of the 1/2/3 race. It's not a common format and it gave me a chance to race. The critical point in the race came early, when some guy in front of me opened a gap and the two guys that were the front of the race went and stayed away.

Not that I didn't chase my face off. I would get within five seconds of them on the non-technical sections and they would open up a couple of seconds on me on the twisty bits. I got third, which is very far from last. Sweet. And I got beaten by a kid with a crazy pedigree who will be pro one day and a guy that makes up for deficiencies between with ears by being fast. So I'm OK with how it all went down.

A podium picture might go here, but they didn't actually have any sort of podium presentation.

The next weekend I went to help my parents out in New York, so on the way there I did the Hop Brook Cycloross race in Connecticut. This course really suited me. If you haven't been following, that means not too much turning and a lot of pedaling (or running, but here it was mostly pedaling). I had one of my best starts ever and spent the entire race in the chase group, behind two heavy hitters.

I also had a nice support club there, consisting of my parents, David from The Devil's Gear and my friend Scott and his boys. That crew may have been half the spectators at the race. With their support I got sixth, but not before getting batted around by two guys who were teammates wearing different kits. Can you say bush league? It was still a great day and CrossResults said it was best race ever by a lot.

This brings me to the last race of November, Baystate Cyclocross. This race is always in grim weather, and this year didn't disappoint. It's always cold and dreary, with a chance of sadness. There were some really fast guys registered, dimming my hopes of racing the entire time.

But my day brightened considerably when I brought my sweet winter suit and pulled my best ever random draw. I got the second best starting position (behind all the other guys with UCI points). Sweet! Now I have a ton of places to squander. And squander I did. I had probably my best position ever going into the end of the first lap and I crashed right into a fence that I was supposed to avoid. Whoops. There went ten or so places. I then locked in battle with the tail of the race. Because of said battle we went fast enough to hold of the leaders by more than enough to finish on the lead lap.

Two straight UCI races on the lead lap. Unheard of. For me. What will NBX Grand Prix bring? I love that race - bad weather, wind, a lot of running. That race is all hustle. And because Shiri calls me the Pete Rose of Bike Racing, I should be OK.