USGP: Sun Prairie, WI

Photo by Ben Van Couvering

Helge and I drove up to Sun Prairie, Wisconsin last Friday for the first weekend of the US Grand Prix of Cyclocross. I love doing the local racing, both here in Chicagoland and in Ohio when I'm home, but it's always great fun and a huge challenge to line up for USGP/UCI races. Where local races have the same faces and the usual sparring partners, the big races bring all the hotshots from the region and elsewhere. The fields are larger, the races harder, and the speeds faster. I don't care that my results start slipping toward midpack, because the racing and atmosphere is usually so much fun.

And as long as I'm not earning top 10 results, how I end up usually means squat. Well, just so long as I'm not lapped, or even worse, last.

The big problem with USGP/UCI racing is that I'm in the Cat. 2/3 category, full of strongmen who compete well in their local series as Cat. 2s. I compete on a mediocre level as a 3 (but I got my upgrade based on results back in '07, like that means anything), so these races are humbling. Sometimes.

The Madison/Sun Prairie USGP race, being only 160 miles away was a must-do on the calendar this year. A bunch of Half Acrians, including myself, got themselves preregistered and I snagged decent starting positions both days, 23rd on Saturday and 25th Sunday. I booked a motel room, a smoking one, apparently, which Helge and I discovered when we checked-in at the Super 8 in Sun Prairie. Being a UW home game, motel rooms were in short supply, so I took what I could get. I got a dank room that smelled like a trucker bar.

Saturday morning, Helge and I got to the course early to scope things out before our 10:15 start time. Rain the night before turned the corners sloppy and swampy and in pre-ride, I was sliding all over the place. I had my tire pressure as low as I could get it on the clincher Vredesteins I've been using since last fall, but I don't think the traction problem was mine alone -- plenty of guys who had yet to race already had brown streaks of mud up and down their kits from laying it down in a corner.

The start was a fast one, albeit with a dumb crash that took out Greg Heck of xXx. I bagged the start bad -- I started off on the third row and found myself in the back 1/3 of the 81 person pack by the time we got to the barriers. At that point it was just damage control and picking people off one by one. The run-up, four railroad ties in a 12% grade hill, killed me, but I slogged up it well enough to get 57 in a strong field. I wasn't lapped and I beat all my teammates, so three cheers for small victories.

Watching the pros a couple of hours later was a more humbling experience than racing against some Cat. 2s from Milwaukee hopped up on espressos. Those guys were riding over the railroad ties and accelerating up the hill rather than just struggling up as all us mortals were. Kevin Klug and Ben Popper looked good and were riding well, well, Ben was until he crashed bad in a corner.

Afterward, it was La Hacienda for eats and margaritas and then Essen Haus for drinks. I had half a beer and that was it for me. Isaiah and Kevin came up from the city to race the next day and were splitting the room with me and Helge. We were all asleep by 11:30.

The course on Sunday was changed and tweaked from its Saturday version. The chicanes after the barriers were longer, the off-camber stuff a little easier. Plus, the course had some time to dry out so those tricky bits were less so. The run-up was now a ride-up, provided you could negotiate a hairpin corner and accelerate from 1 mph on a 12% grade without swerving into the course markers or other riders.

My start Sunday was much better in the field of 91 riders. We all rocketed into the first corners and I was holding on much better. I think I'm a good second-day rider -- I felt so good after racing Chequamegon that I'm more inclined to think that I'm always better for the second shot. I was hitting the barriers better and I was able to ride the hill every time, except when I stalled out after getting stuck behind the editor for Velo News, who was my rabbit for most of the race. Lots of Team Pegasus helped me up the hill with their screams and pushes and for that I give thanks.

I got 47th and again, beat all my teammates.