Race Report: Santacross from Brother Fritz

Posted by The Rev in Scripture on November 3, 2008 | one response

Greetings from Norcal. CXSR #2

Photos in Local Paper

CXSR #2 was fought out on Sat, 11/1 under rainy skies in true Cross Weather. It was the first CX race I’ve been to in California that was actually wet, really wet. East Coast Cross can be anything, Mud, Ice, snow, but typical California Cross is how and or dusty, as even in NorCal the rain doesn’t really pick up till December or January. We were delighted heading into the weekend to see the showers approaching on the forecast, and decided to build a bridge over a fairly deep wash, but come race day, the wash was full, with about 3-4″ over the top of the bridge for a few of the races. Much of the course was mired in mud and only the hardiest of racers could actually ride it. Massive wattage was dumped in a futile effort to keep the wheels turning, but one man had the skills and the balance to ride off the front. In the Men’s A race it was again, Josh Snead (Rock Lobster) taking the gold, with Chris Brown (NorCal BikeSport) in second. Gabriel Keck took a hard fought third, just edging out Justin Torellas. The women’s Division was taken by Barb Howe (VeloBella/Kona) with Sarah Piccolo (NorCal Velo/ Specialized) who got by Melissa Schultz on the last lap. Sarah and Melissa had an extremely hard fought battle and raced through to the very end.

An insane day of heavy rain, thick mud and typical Bikemonkey Grassroots Flavor was capped off with Live Music, beer and bike parking courtesy of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. Next Stop, CXSR #3 at A Place to Play on 12/6. Again co-sponsored by the City of Santa Rosa, it has been awesome to have this kind of support from the local city government after reading about other races getting cancelled due to concerns ripping up the grass. A huge effort is being made on our part to restore any damage done to the parks after each of these races to ensure that this kind of fun can be repeated year after year.

-Ftrain