Avast! A Bike Race!

Whew! I don't know about you guys, but 2011 is leaving me in the dust. The time is just slipping by! In an effort to make the most of my time...

let it be known that every minute spent with Hannah is time well spent...

...I'm trying to keep myself engaged. One of my most recent efforts was a bike race. Not just any bike race-- a cyclocross race, and I was the host/founder/gofer/doer/course-setter-upper and taker-downer. And it was fun. Think of cyclocross as steeplechase on a bike, people doing crazy stuff on bikes just because. I've mentioned it before and I doing it again because it is my favorite discipline of cycling. Someone once told me that people at CX (that's cyclocross) races are there to have a good time, whereas people at road races are there to make sure everyone else has a bad time. I'm over that. Life's too short.
This is the 3rd cross race I've put on but it was the first legitimate one, held in honor of the World Championships which were held in Sankt Wendel, Germany yesterday. It was a ho-hum day for me because my favorite crossers (Sven Nys, Bel. and Katie Compton, USA) finished a disappointing second in their respective races over a fast and technical course.  Katie was supposed to demolish her competition! Sigh...
My race was a less formal (and nowhere near as well attended), but equally arduous affair contested by racers ranging in age from 8 to forty-something.

Perhaps I should just let the pictures tell the tale...

Some of the racers-- some of whom are more enthusiastic than the others

The prize table- trophies and prizes for three categories, three deep.

Megs and Stephen scream over the grass section

The switchback section

Jamie and Allie, both deserving of a flower in January

The Men's A podium. Rob Giannini (center) has won every race I've put on.

Jamie put on an impressive show, lapping half the Men.

I wish I could put you guys in the driver seat for a lap. A local rider had said he was going to wear a helmet camera. How could he know he was going to break his arm the week before the race?

Sarah just kind of shakes her head in resignation when I talk about CX. I mean really, what wife wants to see her husband plunge himself into organizing something as esoteric as this. Still, bikes were part of Rob before Sarah was so she just sort of rolls with it. Where was she? Home, making a test for her accounting class. Perhaps there's the overlap-- we share a certain taste for measured schadenfreude. My vehicle is bikes, hers uses calculators and tax laws.

More soon.