After much debate a few of us finally decided we could not pass up going to Iowa City to watch World Cup # 2 at Jingle Cross. Since we were going to be down there, might as well do a race right? So "Guys Weekend" commenced on Saturday morning with a quick stop at Chick Fil A. then we started the 3 hour journey from Madison to Wisconsin. Brian, Aidan and Brandon at the wheel. This was just really an excuse to get away for the weekend. Upon arriving at the Jingle Cross course on Saturday and surveying the course we knew it would be a thick muddy battle in some places. Really we were there to watch the World Champ and Compton race. The day was filled with yelling and cheering and ended with us back at our hotel. Our hotel also had a water park, so we may have stayed up late to ride the slides. Sunday morning we were up early. Got to the course and noted the changes from the previous day. Conditions were still muddy and there were some stretches that would only be running. It was that thick mud that if you got off the path into the mud there was no coming back. After our pre-ride we got Aidan ready for his Jr's race. 16-18. There were some fatalistically talented jrs racing that day. One just happens to be Aidan. He raced hard and ended up finishing 4th out the 15 in his group. It was a great finish for him. Brian and Brandon were up next with the Masters races. There were about 250 racers on course between Cat 4 & Cat 5 fields which were also split in 35+ and Under groups. Brandon's field went about a minute before Brian's. Brandon (writing) suffering with a twisted ankle from two days prior, really struggled in the long muddy running sections. They were slightly off camber and just not working with the ankle. On one of the downhill sections on the 2nd lap my front whee slipped out from me and sent me to the deck. Thankfully I was able to jump up and out of the way before more people piled into me. It was a very close call which we have on video below. :) Brian's race went on right behind all of this and he continued to push through the challenging conditions. Brian ended up 31st in his large Masters 5 group. Brandon sat back to 52nd in the Masters 4 35+ group. We then washed the bikes off, packed the car and headed quickly back to Madison. It was overall a great quick weekend trip. We saw some amazing racing on Saturday with the Women's and Men's pro fields that just were amazing. It was awesome to have a World Cup race just a few hours from home. Our racing was fun, tough, muddy but always worth it. Photos below of Aidan's race, since Brian and I were racing the other times. Video of Aiden's race and Brandon's races/crash. -Brandon. AMR Founder. Brandon's Crash video Aidan on the starting lap Aidan's Race Footage
|
Archives
April 2019
|