Return to Surf - Dave Carr

Another year, another unreasonably pleasant day, and another great start to another Surf City season. The course today was an updated version of the San Lorenzo Valley HS course that has opened the season the last couple years.  The changes were minor but it was enough to make it a different course, which was fine with me because after a couple of years I tend to dread the hard parts of a course. This time it was a little more fresh, but the key features were still there: running track start, bumpy grass, big ride- and run-up, tricky woodsy singletrack, and wide open pavement and sand in the baseball diamonds. Overall the course is sort of a schizoid amalgam of Surf City old and new: half jungle cross, half SuperCup. All fun.

The story of this race has to be Jackson Stewart, who took his first-ever win in the A's and confirmed the promise he has shown as a junior and U23 rider.   After battling Ben Jacques-Maynes and Justin Robinson for half the race, Jackson took advantage of a puncture by Ben and attacked.  Jackson was never seen again and rolled away to a well deserved victory. 

Meanwhile, after Ben's flat, Justin Morgan was marking Robinson: "I was content to ride with Robinson because I know he fancies himself for victory quite often at these races."  That's for sure but it was not to be today, as Morgan rode away to second place in the waning laps.  He drew close to Jackson but never caught, as the winner observed: "I saw Justin Morgan booking into the forest [behind me], ...so I knew he was flying.  Later I saw his skinsuit, he was covered in that forest dirt, rumor has it he ate it mad in that forest just pushing the peg."  Well done, guys.  As for Ben and Justin Robinson, who between them won four out of the five races at Surf City last year, it was an uncharacteristic finish, but I expect both were saving it up for the SuperCup opener next weekend in Boston.

Speaking of Boston, four of the likely top 10 women at next weekend's SuperCup were duking it out in Surf City on Sunday. Watching the women go by during my warmup I was thinking: Dang, good thing I'm not female. Those gals were rocketing through the course.  Some of you may have read about Carmen (Richardson) D'Alusio from the east coast: well she moved out to NorCal this year and has immediately served notice. Hot on her heels were Gina Hall, Rachel Lloyd, and Christine Vardaros. Looks to be a tough year in the Women's As.

Did I mention my race? Well, me and my nemeses from last year, I mean buddies,  Dave Wierzba, Brian Laird and John Funke all did better this year than last. Only, they did even more better than I did. At least I didn't fall down (sorry, Dave) and I beat the group I was with, so ended up 12th. Not a bad start--better result than all last year in fact, so I'm happy. 

Race Notes:

• At the first race of the year there's always a lot of new faces.  This time a lot of those faces were awfully serious looking. Every year NorCal 'cross gets a little more intense. Used to be, five years ago, half the A field were on mountain bikes. Then everyone got official cross bikes. Now a lot of guys have two CX bikes--and even the second bikes are pretty nice: looking at the pit there's a lot of $2000 bikes lying around there. Pretty serious stuff.  And the guys milling around before the race were pretty dang serious too--a lot of skinsuits and game faces on.

 
• Gary Gogol was back as race announcer, on SLV's stadium PA. Oddly, the man of whom Jeff Clark noted "no matter how much I turn the volume down, he's just as loud" was actually a bit muted, though not much.  Turns out Gary had his jaw wired shut following a nasty moto accident! And still he was out there shouting into the mike like nothing happened. This guy has got game, for sure.

 
• Since I'm rarely at the front of the A race to tell you what went on there, for a change I decided to get the leaders to tell their own tales. Check 'em out below.

 
• I'm looking forward to next race at Fort Ord. Unlike the Central Coast course further inland, Surf City's race is on the dunes close to the sea. This course is all about sand, just like those epic SuperPrestige courses in Belgium and Holland.  And what sand it is. With an epic runup and a number of sand pits, this is the closest we come to true Euro' cross here in NorCal. For some reason, maybe bad weather, a lot of people skipped this race last year.  But come on guys, bad weather is what cross is about. And until you've raced in sand, you haven't truly tasted 'cross.  So see you out there.

Basically, I got a decent start--I think I was 7th or 8th from the gun, and by the time I hit the first barriers I moved up to like 4th or 5th. When we took the U-turn to head up towards the run-up after the barriers I think it was Justin Robinson, Justin Morgan, Ben, myself and someone else. Basically I attacked on the first run-up and gapped a little, but Justin and Ben shut it down. I think by the first lap the four of us had a decent gap. By the second lap it was still us four just going tempo. But, coming into our 3rd lap, down on the lower baseball fields Ben attacked. Justin kind of shut us down in all the single zig zag stuff but when it opened up I went for Ben, caught him, and then he sat up. 

On our 3 or 4th lap it was Ben and I with a little time on Justin and Justin. As we came off of the track and into the basketball court I led it into the single track that shoots us inside the school buildings, when I heard Ben flat. I thought of waiting up for a second [like Armstrong and Ullrich? -Dave] but then I regained my senses and went. I seemed to be gaining or holding the rest of the race...except when out of nowhere with about 2 or 3 to go, I came out of the forest (up in the shady woods) and saw Justin Morgan booking into the forest just behind me. After I got away I hadn't seen anyone that close, so I knew he was flying. I picked it up a little and didn't see him after that..and I won. Later I saw his skinsuit, he was covered in that forest dirt, rumor has it he ate it mad in that forest just pushin' the peg. Great course, at least for me--way better than the last year's, and I'm not just saying that because it was my day! --Jackson. 

Jackson was very active at the front from early on.  Robinson made the first attack and was covered by Jackson, then Ben countered and was covered again by Jackson and they slowly put a few seconds on Robinson and I.  It appeared that Robinson was not going to be the aggressor today.  I was content to ride with Robinson because I know he fancies himself for victory quite often at these races. 

For the next couple laps Robinson did the work while I settled into the pace.  I began to work with him but my bike handling in the technical stuff and over the barriers was sub-Robinson and he came around me just about every time I pitched in to help.   He wasn't pulling hard so I thought maybe he was waiting for Ben who had flatted through the hallways.  So with about three and a half laps to go I put in a concerted effort and saw a gap behind me, so I went for it by myself to try to get across to Jackson. I came up short, but I was pretty happy to get 2nd. --Justin Morgan