This was a rough week, with the bruised ribs from last Sunday's mountain bike crash. It was supposed to be a week of racing. But that will need have to wait a few weeks.
On Tuesday Paula and I went for a short ride around town. I wanted to test out how the ribs felt on the bike. With some painkillers it felt alright and felt ready for the NCC cyclocross practice.
After the Blunt park race two weeks ago I had ordered a 40t one-by chainring and a Shimano Ultegra Clutch derailleur. Wednesday afternoon, before the practice I setup the Honey crossbike with the new parts.
I went to the practice to test out the new setup, but also to see how the bikefit from the weekend before turned out. Including David and myself we had 7 racers. I had setup the peanut circuit again. I was planning to take it easy and just get used to the new setup. The bike fit felt good, although I did not ride at full speed. The one-by setup worked well and the shifting felt crisp. After a two laps had to take it easy did some laps in the peanut circuit before going home.
Friday I went to test out the Scott which I was planning to race Mt Greylock the next day. The Scott was not shifting well and despite all my and John's efforts we could not find the cause of the unreliable shifting. On top of it it also had a slow leak on the front tire. So I decided to use the Honey bike with the road tires for the race.
Saturday was the NCC Mt Greylock hill climb. Jutta, Alexa and the baby had arrived Friday to stay for the weekend, as Jutta was racing up Greylock as well. Paula was volunteering at the event to drive the riders bags with warm clothes up the mountain. So we had to be there at 8:45 am. Which was perfect as it give me some time to warm up. The warmup consisted riding up and down rt 8. I was not the only one. More then a 100 riders had signed up.
There was a staggered start, my start time was almost at the end at 9:35am. The climb is in total 9.2 mile long, 2704ft high with an average grade of 5.7%. The steepest sections are in the beginning. With the Honey's not optimal gear ratio 40t/34t these sections were pretty hard with a slow cadence. I tried to not get out of breath to prevent deep breathing, which was painful with the bruised lower left rib.
Soon I was being overtaken by the faster riders, and fortunately I was able to overtake some riders as well. That lifted the spirits and on the 2nd half of the course I started feeling better and could do some standing sections. The official finish time was 1 hour and 9 seconds. Even though I was not able to keep my planned power numbers, the Strava segment had me just under an hour and beat my previous pr with more than a minute.
Sunday was Quad Cross in Maynard. I had signed up for both Cat 1-4 50+ and the Cat 4 40+. I was in no in a condition to race, but since we had a Pedal Power team barbecue afterwards went to see the Cat 4 40+ race. Cross results had staged me in first place so was curious about the competition. On front row saw some familiar faces: Dave an Gregory. Was fun to see them race but with pain in my heart would have loved to do that course. Oh well. For the rest was one big reunion saw / spoke a lot of folks I had not seen in a long time. I was glad to make it up there and hopefully next year will be able to race it again when fully fit.
Here the week on Veloviewer.
