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Elm City CX - December 2014
The inaugural running of Elm City CX offered several draws:
I was poised for my trademark strong start from near the back (BikeReg showed 38 signed up). I snagged the left end of my row, giving me the Walker Line around the outside of the hole shot. Thirty seconds called, oops, wrong gear, time to change, unclip, shift--WHISTLE--and @#$% I'm not even clipped in. LvdH would have been very disappointed. I lost a decent number of riders early on the start stretch, clawed a few back, snagged a few more places at the hole shot, dismounted at the bottleneck and barged my way through a few turns and a few more places, putting myself in the mix with guys who started 2 rows ahead. 
I spent the rest of lap 1 executing my trademark lap 1 tactic of getting passed by guys I had edged with my trademark strong start. The climb required dismounting due to traffic, I rode it the other six times, probably slower at the top than I would have been able to run it. The upper plateau offered a chance at recovery and I was usually able gain on the power section there. I lost that gain on the descent, then got it back on the single track through the woods at the bottom. Out on the grass-became-mud, I held my own. The lap finished with a stint through a skateboard park that included a steep concrete tabletop and then an exit to some low rideable (by someone else) barriers. I was smooth over the barriers all 7 times, earning me kudos usually reserved for bunnyhoppers. By lap 5, with snow flurries building throughout the race, I was starting to gain on guys. I passed two on lap 5 (including one on some REALLY narrow single track that in hindsight was a STUPID place to pass), one at the end of lap 6, one at the beginning of lap 7, and a final one toward the end of lap 7 when some off-camber mud tripped him up. All in all, five riders gained--that would boost my result by a LOT. At the end of lap 6, I narrowly held off the race leader, earning me a final lap and another trip up the by-now-very-soul-sucking-climb. I ended up finishing 24 of 37, which meant top two-thirds, which is good for me. The only down side is that my 578 point outing at Cooper River back in October just dropped out of my ten most recent races, so almost no matter how well I fared on points, my total's likely to worsen. [Note: I just received my cross points for Elm City-577.8, which just about perfectly replaces the 578.48 I'm losing!] The Numbers: click here for Strava
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2014 RESULTS
2013 RESULTS
2012 RESULTS
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