Keeping the season rolling-- Matt's foray into CYCLOCROSS

After having a fairly long and pretty successful season on the road, i decided to keep my fitness up by competing in a full season of cyclocross (the cult sport for roadies who don't quite like mtn. biking but want a taste of the off-road life). I had thought about it for a while, but finally came to the end of a racing season this year where i didn't feel completely torched and apathetic about racing.




The Georgia-Cross series fits well into the end of the road season, so that i could take a quick couple of weeks off in August and start preparing for the short-but-intense 'cross season. It only runs from the beginning of October to the beginning of December, but there are races every week-end; it's not something you want to come into unprepared.





Cyclocross courses are usually short and very spectator-friendly; about a mile or so in length with lots of obstacles- steep hills, sand, tight turns, sketchy dirt roads, all with lots of grass sections thrown in for good measure. they're normally nowhere near as technical as mtn bike courses, due to the fact that we're riding modified road bikes and just can't do the same things mtn bikers can do-- much respect... We ride these courses just as hard as we can, getting our heart rates up to criterium racing levels in the 30 minutes of racing we do.




I'm not the first Columbusite to test these waters; Mike Reardon and Ryan Crabbe have already made headway in the cross world, with Mike having phenominal success as the 2007 New Jersey cross series winner.




I came into my first race of the series in very good form-- i'd been hitting all of my workouts and working on 'cross-specific skills a whole lot. Never having done a cross race before, i really didn't know what to expect, though. Turns out, i'm half decent at it-- 5th out of 62 in the beginner field...



enjoy the pictures , courtesy of my man Glenn Kalnins-- these were all from Macon-- more to follow as the season wears on!



Here's the schedule-- get your cowbells ready!

GAX Race Schedule

10/4/2009	#1	Macon
10/18/2009	#2	Dahlonega
10/25/2009	#3	Augusta
11/1/2009	#4	Yargo
11/8/2009	#5	Savannah
11/15/2009	#6	Paulding
11/22/2009	#7	Barnsley Gardens
11/29/2009	#8	Conyers Elks Aidemore
12/6/2009	#9	Conyers GIHP

check out my results on georgia-cross.com --- i'm in the men's "c" class with my last name misspelled...