First Euro cross race

After last weekends incredibly road racing experience, I was really excited to see how a local cross race would compare. The race was on a lake in a small town, Montrevel en Bresse, about a 2 hour drive from Premanon. Rain was coming down hard until an hour before our race when the weather cleared up a bit. This made for wet grass, sticky mud, soft wet sand, and even some loose dry sand.

Team Premanon, cross style.

Jesse, TJ, Russell, and I were there to race, but we were also lucky to have a full support crew of Ian, Shaun, Adam, and Robby. During our race, they cheered like crazy which definitely made us go faster!

After a slow back of the pack start, I began working my way through the field quickly. Despite riding with a semi-slick hutchinson pirhana rear tire, I still felt good in the slippery stuff. I had tons of fun passing people and riding the different features of the course. Several times, when I would come out onto a long paved section, a couple strong riders would come charging by me, staying ahead only until we reached a technical section, where I was back in my element. The most difficult part of the course for me was the long beach section, where we rode through sand into a stiff headwind for 300 meters. Slow painful grind.

In the end I probably finished just inside the top 20. Russell had a great ride to around 10th place, as did Jesse and TJ, coming in shortly after me. It was so refreshing to race some cross, especially in the mud. Now I'm really itching to do some more races!

Thank you for the great pictures, Adam and Ian!