Sunday, December 6, 2009

Cross courses don't set themselves up

When I first developed this grand delusion of promoting a CX race in manhattan, one of my first thoughts (as a new unaffiliated promoter) was, where am a going to appropriate enough course stakes to lay out a 2 km course?
If I was back home in my beloved dirty south I would just run over to the sawmill and get mill slats. But the scarcity of trees, and the ensuing lack of sawmills meant that I was gonna have take a more creative approach to appropriating stakes........enter Boss Cross.
Myself and Dubas, met Slater for Boss Cross IV, and afterward we were responsible for disassembling the entire course.......more on this later.
Lined up for the 3/4 race with about 15 0ther folks that think of self flagellation as being too "main stream". I managed to start out about 7 wheels back, and after the first couple of laps I managed to bridge up to Gilhousen and get by on the long pavement section. It was pretty windy, but most of the race was dealing with a crosswind so I was not worried about going it alone. And I did for about three long laps getting about a 10 second gap, and then I looked back to see Gilhousen coming around with 2 to go. I tried to jump on but I just never could close the gap until the last half lap. managed to sneak around and ride into 4th place for some monies. Zach stayed real steady all day and finished in 7th. Slater was using the "Shock and Awe" effect of his facial hair to keep the rest of the 3/4's in check. Zach found out that there were only 3 guys racing in the 1/2 race, so he rode another hour to get his entry fees back.
Then the real work started. Joe and Jeremy were joking about us taking down the course while they drank beer. I commented that they better not be planning to drive home cuz we were gonna be a while. It took Slater, Zach and I almost 3 and a half hours to clean the course up.

We were not gonna fit too many more stakes in the back of my truck. We are set to go for this weekend, and are looking forward to some good times at Barnyard CX

1 comment:

Brad said...

I've see people use pex tubing cut into 2-3 foot sections as stakes. they stay pretty straight once un-rolled and cut. They tend to be pliable when crashing upon them as well. A 100 foot roll is about 40-50 dollars depending on diameter. not sure if this is cheaper or better than what ideas you have found.