MFG North 40 Single Speed CX

I was looking forward to this venue when I first saw the race schedule released earlier this year. I raced this course in 2015 and 2016 and had fond memories of the course. Now that we are in November and in the company of numerous atmospheric rivers, the conditions should finally get to proper cyclocross conditions and give us a muddier course. Sunday wasn't full mud fest but it was better than PNW has seen all season.

Leading up to the race, it had been raining the previous week with some heavier than usual rain so things were damp for sure. The rain stopped pretty much right before Sunday's races started at it was coming down while the organizers set up the course.

I didn't have high expectations on my result and just wanted to ride a clean ride and go full gas and keep the heart rate high while keeping lap times consistent or improving. I think I can say that happened for me.

My start was fine but its really hard to position to well because I'm probably five rows back and there is plenty of people to get around. I think this might be harder in single speed because you spin out pretty early on and the course narrowed in some twisty sections and the traffic was slowing things down some.

The course was reversed this year and had a short gravel climb that took some sharp, big efforts to get up. There was a stair run up and a nice short technical descent with a hard left turn at the bottom.

On the third lap I learned that if I gonna make pass I better be ready to speed up after. I passed Tall Bryan from Pizza Pals early in the 3rd lap and he ended up motivated and came by late in the 3rd lap and was too much to catch but I was able to hang on his wheel the rest of the race.

My friends Chris from Space Cadets was either close on my wheel or a few spots back the whole race. On the final lap he made a pass on the gravel climb and I was determined to match it.

I caught up and took the inside line to the hairpin after the climb and got ahead. This resulted in him making another hard sprint and passing both Bryan and myself.

After that happened, there was a lot of lapped traffic that got in the way and not enough time to find a way to close the gap. I was also feeling pretty worn out and pulled off the gas a bit right at the finish when I realized it was going to be near impossible to gain any places.

I hypothesize that since this is only my second cross race this season and some of field is on their 7th or 8th that I'm losing some spots due to fitness or do I need to up my bike handling skills too improve my position. I plan to do a deep dive in the near future to come up with a plan to improve and get myself in the top 20 for a single speed race this year.

I also was feel left out not hitting the Hodala short cut jump on the laps. I have never hit a ramp like that on my cross bike and to self conscious to try first in race. I need to find a way to practice a jump since I know this ramp will be back in a race soon. Also, I still want to be able to jump the small barriers but I have only practiced twice so its probably not happening this season but who knows.

The Good

• Consistent lap times and no major mistakes.
• Kept heart rate high and elevated.
• Remounts were smooth.
• Overall result was good and lots of racers within 30 secs ahead of me so I'm getting closer to top twenty finish.
• Switched my gear ratio from 40x17 to 36x17 and that worked well for the profile of this course. I only really spun out on the finish line and the slight gravel road descent leading up to the climb.
• Mud tires (Specialized Terra Pro) provided good traction in corners.

Needs Improvement

• Valve cores were clogged with sealant and making it very to hard to set desired tire pressure.
• Need more lean and better lines in tighter corners. I made some small mistakes that cost me some time.
• Tire pressure too low and not stable enough in fast corners
• Need to practice 30 second anaerobic power efforts for steep sections.
• Dropouts and rear QR skewer not tight enough. I was swapping chains a few days before to a newer waxed chain and playing with tension and the rocker dropouts. Well I need to tighten up everything when I finished but I didn't. Good thing there wasn't any bad outcomes from this.