Cyclocross Arrives!

It stands to reason that for the fans, cyclocross has become the number one form of racing to watch. In Bend this weekend, a watershed moment for domestic racing may have occurred. Oregon brings a freakin' drum corps to the festivities and they pound non stop every race. At least eight thousand people jammed the barriers for the Women's and Men's Elite races today, it musta been electric standing there. Through out the week there's been great stories. (Also more crashes than a NASCAR greatest hits reel) Paul Curley won his masters group, while Myrah and Webber made for a good war. Coryn Rivera won her freakin' 25th National title, at seventeen. Now it was down to the big dogs. Fast laps in the masters and juniors races caused organizers to extend the course for Sunday's main events. For the Elite Women, the show was for second place. Micro force Dombrowski almost tagged it, but probably put in too much juice gunning for Compton on the opening laps. With a record sixth straight national title, Katie is clearly a legend on par with Armstrong, Slater, Jordan et al. (Interesting to note that her track racing counterpart Sara Hammer was drilling it today too). Speaking of legends, Ned Overend allegedly skipped the masters race to give all in the elites - USACycling lists him as a DNS tho; wonder what happened to him. Johnson, Treefarm and Page took the top slots in what sounds to have been a nitrous charged slugfest. We called a New Englander for the win, first and third rock Eastside roots. Lotsa racers showed great promise today, particularly the U23 and Jr categories which saw mature, powerful racing from the boys and girls. Cal-Giant Strawberry proved to be the little team that could, with their riders showing strongly in numerous categories, particularly Miller finishing second behind Compton for women's pro and James Coates, the monster, in 45-49 Masters. Very exciting and big ups to Cyclocross Magazine for providing excellent live text commentary all weekend. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the cyclosphere... Pave has a nice discussion of Wiggins' shift to Sky. Guess Lance won't be driving a Subaru any more. Good use for old license plates. Just what the fixiestyle scene needs, action figures. Go ride.