The first official race of the season is in the books here in Wisconsin. Illinois begins today. Full report over at PelotonStar.Com but here's a few pix to wet your appetite. Most are too big to post here, so I have these preview shots over on Photobucket.

The sweet squish of green grass turned to muddy goo... don't get that in an RR.

Bah. Not so much.

I'm feeling the fall fling. Crit on Saturday... yes!

Full on cross. The first race was a blast. Our field lined up 30-40 minutes early and because we all knew each other so well we just chatted it up the whole time having a blast.

I signed up for all 4 fall fling races before realizing I will miss the entire first weekend. Ugh.

guess it's time to just switch to cross full on. I love the fling but I'll only race if the team needs any help at that point.

It's going to be nearly 90 degrees and sunny today. Screw you people and your cross.

Fall Fling is less than 48 hours away!

Cross city my man.


Mow em down in the fall fling!

In.

Nice job by ABD out there today. Decent sized fields, long races, pizza and cake. What more can you ask for?

About 5 laps in to it, I kept wondering how I'm going to get through the next 5 1/2 months without a crit. Not sure how those guys who abandon road racing in August avoid going nuts before March!

The answer is in the title to this thread!

'Cross is hawt !



(ARRRRGGGHHHH ... NO MORE POP UP VIDEOS !!!!!!!)

bandits tonight. 2 of them. You know where to look.

Does that include the Geneva one?

I know you folks hate how I keep invading your thread (although, really, there hasn't been that much cross love in here yet), but this weekend's Fall Fling is going to make for some spectacular racing. The top 4 guys in the 1/2 are separated by a total of 4 points. With two of them from BH and the other two on teams that are affiliated (Verizon and Verizon u/25), it is going to be a hell of a battle (something tells me we'll see more of the Verizon masters guys out there this weekend...) I'm sensing a lot of attacks. And, Joe (PSIMET) is tied for the overall lead in the 4's, even though he could be racing 40+ Cat 4.

As much as cross is fun, you don't get the kind of strategy and (potentially) team/group effort we could potentially see this weekend. I'm not ready to let road go yet...

agreed. hold onto it real tight!

also, PSIMET has a guy in 5th and will be PSIMET'er in 10th in the 4s. should be fun weekend. later.

aham bringing the A-game. I like it. Good luck out there this weekend, man!

Let it GO!!!!!! Cross the Domes this weekend in Milwaukee is going to be sick. Super technical course with monster climb with a chicane in it, double sandpit lengthwise of a volleyball court. Lakefront Brewery on tap, food, DRUM LINE on the climb / run up. Sick I tell you, sick. I'm puking already!

I'm planning on Cross the Domes. I just sent in my upgrade request for the 3's but will be in the 4's if it doesn't go through.

Hmmmm. Maybe I should bring a video camera too ....

Sunday morning I'm shooting the leaders in Milwaukee's Lakefront Marathon (will skip from one road crossing to another along the route), then going up to Sheboygan to shoot the WORS MTB race. I'm not usually welcome at WORS, but it's in a public park, so I'm going! Gonna camp out on the water crossing and the big log jump, get some KILLER shots, and GIVE EM AWAY FREE! HA HA !!

Totally spent! Long day with course set up and take down plus some hard racing. Sad that the Greendale HS drumline didn't make an appearance. Guess it all didn't get straightened out in time for today. Oh well!!!

Onto Pumpkin CX next weekend in Grafton with some Irish punk rock!

Yup. Grafton will be a good time.

I think the cold/rainy weather was a shock to most (me too). Not many walked the 200 m over to the big climb, it was pretty quiet over there. Great course though, a bit too long perhaps? The DOUBLE sand pit was awesome!

Cross is off and running!

Speedster, you guys did a great job with the race today. Lots of fun/pain! I think the bumpy course was worse than the climb or the ridiculous double sand pit. Not really, but it made any micro recovery tough to come by.

This was my second cx race and it went well for me, didn't go down(except 5 min before the start in front of everybody on the start grid, just lost my balance with the wrong foot clipped in, ugh embarrassing!) and finished pretty good, especially for starting in the back.

I wasn't able to race any road this year due to injury so it's nice to get back into some racin.

I was a little iffy about going to Grafton but I think I'm in, should be fun.

Yea it was bumpy. I think that was about the only complaint we received. Not much we could do about that unfortunately. And yea, it was a long course! It was nice near the parking lot because you could see nearly all of the course. And if you were by the wheel pit, you could see everyone on the climb, but it was a bit far to walk to heckle riders churning the gears up it.

Definately do Grafton Jcpups! You were in the Magnus kit?

Yep, Magnus.

I wouldn't really call it a complaint(from me at least), that mixed with the length of the course made it deceptively difficult. It made it hard for some folks to find a rhythm, but hey, we all ride the same course. That's cross.

Grafton is a go, all it took was a teammate saying the course would suit me. Plus I liked Grafton when I was there for the toad race last year, nice little town.

Domes pix uploading.

plus short write up: https://www.pelotonstar.com/

John - Still working on the new camera? Or were you doing some effects to some of the pics?

Also do you have any more of the women's cat 3? The girlfriend is looking for some of her....

Nice work!