Monstercross 2023

Looks like I have to blow the dust off this thing again. Yeesh.

After all the excitement I had for the start of cyclocross season, I got crashed out of the 3rd training race and lost 5 months to a slow shoulder recovery. The 'cross season never happened, and I moped back to solo riding.

But after surprising myself by staying with the front group for 60+ miles of the annual New Year's Day unofficial road race, I figured maybe, just maybe, I might be able to get to fitness for Monstercross, the sorta-but-not-really-totally-unofficial start to the mid-Atlantic racing calendar.

I've written about this race before. It was my very first race, way back in 2016, and I've had a love/hate relationship with it every year since. It was also my last race before the pandemic, and my first race back afterward. It's become weirdly important in my heart to participate, and it's a great pre-season fitness test.

I'd spent years hunting for the "right" setup for it, having long believed success would come on a light-weight carbon hardtail mountain bike, but a quick pre-ride with my son on his new bike that matched that exact description suggested it was nowhere near as capable as a well-geared drop-bar bike with aero bars.

So I threw some money at the problem and converted my CX bike to 1x SRAM Force XPLR with a bargain discount Quarq Dzero powermeter and a 40T chainring. I also hit the local discount bins for wheels & tires and came away with a set of non-boost MTB wheels that fit the bike with a simple axle end-cap conversion, massive 26mm internal rim width, and 700x42 WTB Resolute SG2 tires @ 25psi.

When combined with the aero bars and a day of decent weather, this combination of changes let me put down a Strava top-10 performance on the lap (the activity is private, so no peeking!) on tired legs, so I felt pretty confident going into the race.

I also did a good job of tapering, and didn't sucker myself into even touching a bike for the 3 days before the race, carb-loaded a bit the night before, and chose the right racing category of 40+.

But I also had COVID in January and hadn't ridden with anybody wheel-to-wheel since January 1, so while I felt like I'd done everything I could, there was still the whole unknown of Other People's Readiness.

I got in a quick warmup ride on the opening miles of the course just to be extra familiar with the turns and lined up...deep in the group. This race is all about the opening mile, most of which is on a narrow twisting loop of pavement, and if you're not in the front 50, your race can be over before you even reach the first bit of gravel.

I was not in the first 50.

By the time we hit gravel, we could see almost a football field of distance between us and the group ahead, and nobody at the front of our group was putting in a dig, but they were happy to gum up the line so nobody could get through.

After almost a half mile of watching the lead group disappear, a teammate put in a big dig, opened a hole, and I chased through. A few followed, but the next 5 miles were just bridge after bridge after bridge, and every time we'd make it to within a few meters of the lead group, the wheel we'd been following would drop off the back, forcing yet another big effort.

Then, just as we made contact, a big crash split the whole group in two, and of course I was on the wrong side of the split. After so much work to get there, I didn't have another full chase in me and settled for the newly-formed 2nd group. We worked well as a whole for several miles, taking rotations and not forcing anyone on the front, though I did stick my nose out there for almost the entire road section because of my aero bars.

The group dwindled down to about 15 before we hit the campgrounds, and then another crash brought us down to maybe 10, and for the most part, that was the composition for the next 35 miles. We lost my teammate somewhere along the way, but another teammate had volunteered to be race support and handed an EXPERT-level bottle transfer at the end of lap 1.

But then I did the thing. I did the same thing I've done every year since I started racing this thing with aero bars: I raced everybody's race for them.

Lap 2 is notoriously hard. The focus is gone, the pain is present, the desire to simply survive takes over. Conversation stops, anger rises, attacks become less frequent, and the group becomes complacent.

We hadn't made it a mile into the 2nd lap before I realized my average power was much lower than in the first lap. Granted, I wasn't crossing bridges to chase, but it was down from mid-200's to under 200W. We were slowing down, and nobody seemed interested in pulling or working.

So I did. And did. And did some more. And then did again, followed by more and more and more. But I was being very cautious about my efforts, keeping an eye glued firmly to power and never doing climbs above 400W. One guy would occasionally throw an attack and get some space, but just staying on the bars and maintaining a steady ~220W would bring us right back to him within half a mile. And this continued from mile 26 to about mile 45.

We caught another pair of riders at about mile 32, one of whom went on to win the women's pro field, but aside from the one guy's attacks and her brutal responses, nobody wanted to come through. Eventually the 3 of us agreed to neutralize: we were all in different categories of the race, and the only one of us who had competition in the group was racing 60+. There was nothing he could do to attack and stay away, and we just kept dragging his competitors back to him, so I vowed not to respond to his attack if he went late, asked the lady to do the same, and just kept it steady.

By mile 46 I was in novel territory: I'd never made it this far into the race with the same group, and it looked like a 3-hour finish was just about tenable, but I knew I had to get off the front to survive the final trail section. I literally had to feign injury to get people to come around me, and I settled into the back of the group and just waited for the misery of the end: a mile of walking trails that includes some of the nastiest climbing on the course, the only creek-crossing that I can't ride, and a punishing rooty descent just when you can't take any more abuse.

And that's where I took my foot off the gas. I had gummed up the group on that creek-crossing on lap 1 and didn't want to mess up anybody else's race at the end, so I got to the back and just paced myself. The last climb was agony, and on the rooty descent there was a rider down receiving medical attention, and a guy physically blocking the entire trail with his bike to protect the scene (though I couldn't see the emergency scene because he was blocking the trail and offering absolutely no guidance as to why--he nearly caused me to go over the bars hitting the brakes, so maybe don't do this?). I went cautiously around, found there was nobody coming after my wheel, and just rolled to the end for a finish time of 3:00:04, 11 minutes faster than ever before.

I didn't realize at the time that this would be sufficient for 5th place in the 40+ category. I also didn't realize that there had, in fact, been someone else in that category in my grupetto, so I could maybe have snagged 4th and hit my sub 3h goal if I'd been a little less cordial at the end.

But overall I'm absolutely thrilled with the result. I've been on the podium twice at Dirty Kitten's 40-mile race, but a podium at Monstercross had eluded me for years. This year's setup, with a power meter to keep me honest about efforts, better tires to manage the turns, and better focus through better weather, let me be much smoother than in years past and not blow up in the final miles. The team support was instrumental, both on and off the course, and I feel like I'm well-positioned for the start of the gravel season.

But it leaves a question about the 2023 road season. I'd kinda wanted to make another low-key run at the Virginia Cycling Association CAT 3 BAR, but with a season that's mostly just crits with a couple of TT's and a single tentative road race, it's not a year that plays to my strengths. So for now I'm just going to look for regional gravel races and hit the truly local (like Richmond-local) road events, and maybe take a look at the mountain-bike race scene, since that's where my son's interest currently lies.

Also, the kid took 3rd place again in the Mini Monster (25 mile) junior competition. A good day for the whole family!