Yesterday we had a very nice cyclocross practice at Jim Miller park in Marietta, GA. It is the usual spot for the Wednesday night 'cross scene and has been (and will be) a fantastic race venue.
We started off doing 3 lap blocks at race pace, which if you read between the lines means let the A-level guys lead and we try and catch up. Our main A guys, Daryl Sawyer and Tim Barrett are hard to keep up with and it is easy to see the difference between cat 3 and a cat 1-2 even in 'cross. A very young A level rider, Oscar Clark, was also getting back up to speed with the rest when he was not sliding around in the woods. The efforts were hard but not uncomfortable and on the last 2 laps I had to let the A guys ride off since they had much more in the tank.
This year I have gotten to ride 'cross with Tim Owens who rode B's last year and finished in the top 10 overall. He has been keeping up and matching the A riders for most of the laps so he will be a strong rider in the B's or even in the A's if he elects to race there.
We also had nice group of women ride last night and there has been a core group for the past few years. Hopefully this will translate into larger numbers for the series.
The Jim Miller course has gotten very used in the dry weather and some of the climbs and decents are getting sketchy and tricky--but that makes it more fun. I had a nice scary encounter with some poodles and a stop sign last night but was able to avoid both and manage not to plummet down the culvert to certain death.
Everyone is very excited about this weekend's race in Birmingham and hopefully the GA contingent will increase their series participation to record numbers. If their races were Saturday, many riders from GA would make the trip each week for a double race weekend.
Finally some rain today and maybe that will loosen up the ground for Sunday.
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