Red River Cyclocross - Moorehead, MN

Saturday, September 17, 2005 - Red River Cyclocross Challenge

With a start time of 3:15 PM, Mike, Syd and I had plenty of time to make the long trek from Marshall to Moorehead (as in Fargo). Fargo is a way cooler and hipper town than I expected with 4 Universities making up a good part of the town. We easily found the park where the race was to be held (it is very easy to navigate in this part of the world), and Mike went to register while Syd and I checked out and introduced ourselves to "the competition".

We've been studying the racers (by name) from the Minnesota Cycling Federations homepage (like ncnca.org...only it's mcf.net), and the first guy Mike hooked up with, was last year's winner, Jacob Steckman. He (Jacob) races on the road for the Pro Team Subway. I saw him at Nature Valley. He's a big guy (like Justin Robinson) and he's good (Cross is his speciality and he does the UCI circuit).

The conditions were good. Overcast-ish...not too hot. All the things that make this part of Minnesota pretty though, also attract that dreaded mosquito. I have more bites today than I have since I moved here. My face, my back, the tops of my hands (for crying-out-loud!). These are tough little buggers that managed to bite me right through my 501 jeans. (A smart Minnesotan would have thought to wear bug-spray, but even my husband didn't think of it and he's a born-here-native!)

While Mike was out doing warm-up laps, I hung out with some other riders. "Hey, did you see that McGuire-Langdale rider? What's he doing here?" I chuckled. One of the promoters said, "Hey...this is Moorehead, we invited some of the BIG guys!"

To make a long story short (yeah...right), Mike was off the front right away (the first lap had a prime and Mike thought if nothing else...he'd take that). And he did! Feeding at cross races is awesome. You hand off the bottle and they take a sip and throw it....so you just keep handing off the same bottle for the whole race (1 hour plus three laps).

By lap two, the break had formed and it was Mike, Jacob and this kid from the "Hollywood Team", Pat, with the rest of the race more than 40 seconds back. (There was a pile up that shattered the field somewhat...it happened somewhere behind the lead group, I think at the first barrier). Somewhere along the backside, Jacob attacked the two other guys, and Mike, unfamiliar with who he was racing with, failed to bridge up and ended up working with Pat. There was another guy, Lance (7th in the series overall in 2004), who was about 10 seconds back, and the rest of the field was 40 seconds behind him. By the final bell lap, the race went by pretty much "status quo". Jacob came in first, and about 15-20 seconds back (they had reeled in some time), Mike waxed the other two guys for a decisive 2nd place finish. That guy Lance who was 10 seconds back, and bridged up to Mike's group so the three guys sprinted for 2nd, and Mike crushed em'!

He won a bunch of stuff, socks, t-shirt, case of water, a medal, a cool cow bell, and $70! We laughed on the way home. He's won $220 in the last two races. Not bad for a guy who's working 40 hours a week and hasn't done a cross race since 1999! Next week we head to St. Cloud for the Pork Chop Classic. Alot of the guys who were at the infamous Chequamagan (pronounced Shwamagen) this weekend, will be in St. Cloud next weekend. Thanks for reading!