Cyclocross September 2025
Three single race weekends, with a weekend off after Deer Farm.
Deer Farm CX
Deer Farm is always a fun race. It takes place in West Newfield, Maine on a former deer farm. Since it is a bit of a drive, 3+ hours, we left Friday early afternoon with our Camper Van. This also allowed me to preride the course Friday afternoon. Greg the organizer outdid himself, it was his best course so far. My race started in the early afternoon. I prefer these later in the day races, warmer and gives body some time to wakeup. However in this case a huge storm was heading our way, and was forecasted to start just around our finish time. The 40, 50, and 60 masters raced together with a 30s start difference. There was a slight hickup with our callup as they accidentally called up based on registration date instead of cross results points. Surprised me a little as I was predicted first, and was not called up first. Fortunately I did end up on the front row. My race started with a holeshot up the hill. Was briefly overtaken by later number 2, but when he made a small mistake, it brought me back in the lead.
I was able to keep the lead for the rest of the race and build it out to over a minute. Paula was very helpful by giving me realtime lead data. After the race we had some time for the podium ceremony, a quick dive in the lake, and some pizza and beer. Just after we left the rain and t-storms started, and we drove to our next destination Sebago State Park where we camped for 2 additional nights before driving home.
West Hill Cyclocross
After a weekend off, it was time for the next River Valley race, West Hill in Putney Vermont. My last few races here had not been very succesful with me blowing up. The course was slight different then I remember, but there were still prolonged power sections without a lot of recovery opportunities. And off course the long runup.
I did get the holeshot, and almost lead to whole first lap, until I crashed in a technical off-chamber section, and basically had blown myself up again. From here on I was struggling to keep my speed up, and felt fortunate to get lapped, meaning a shorter race, and finished 6th, which was pretty disappointing.
KiloWatt Cross
Kilowatt in Northfield was the last race in September and the 4th in the River Valley series. The Friday afternoon before I went up and did a number of preride laps. With my friend Mike and another Stephen Hyde coached athlete we checked out the various lines, which turned out to be very helpful.
My start on 2nd row was a bit bumpy as my left foot unclipped and I dropped back. Within one lap I was able to work my way back to 3rd position, but was shortly after overtaken for 4th. We battled for the rest of the race, and my plan to attack on the last barriers failed. In the rideup in the corner before the barriers, I had to get of the bike and was not able to get back on his wheel. As a result the sprint for the finish never materialized, and ended in fourth place.
With consistently showing up at the River Valley races I had climbed up to 2nd place with 1 more race to go.