Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival
Posted in Blog on 09. Oct, 2008
The Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival is here!
The top 3 Elite women from last year’s Nats are here (Compton, Lloyd, Gould), four of the top ten elite men are here (Wicks, Wells, Tonkin, J-Pow), more than a dozen current and/or former national champions for the US, Switzerland, Denmark, and Canada are here, there’s food, music, racing for all categories, admission is free, and… I am announcing! This is a once a year opportunity to see back to back to back high level UCI racing plus compete in your own category.
Just read the velonews article on the race. No mention of the announcing by John G or the 2JPC. I think it’s a media conspiracy because they are the man trying to keep the up and comers down. Or maybe it’s just the great reporting by 2JPC and the bigger guys got scooped.
Johns, so a 15 year old Lance – winning by several minutes in the 3’s. Oh and about 30 others that raced down in the same race – hmmm. 1st Question: Who decides at these two races who lined up where at the start?
2nd Question: Who decides if there is or is not a 1/2 race – if the 1/2’s don’t want to buy a UCI license? Or is this a US wide issue?
This to me, is no different than a road CAT 1/2 racing in a CAT 4 race IMO.
Nice announcing out there all weekend!
Thanks for the announcer props. I had fun.
1st Answer: Starting grid was determined by order of registration and optional promoter call-ups.
2nd Answer: It’s a race to race issue decided by the promoter. In reality a lot of the non-UCI licensed 1/2’s race in the Elite Masters, the other non-master 1’s and 2’s pony up the $150 for a UCI license. UCI points go towards a higher starting position at Nationals. I am a Cat. 1 on the road, thus a Cat. 1 for cross plus I am a Master. I would have opted for Masters event. The race I see needed to fill in the gap is a B+/A- race for fast(er) 3’s and 2’s. This weekend I can site only one instance of a guy who is a 2 on the road racing in the B’s. Categories were listed on the start lists I received. Whether guys who are 3’s should be upgraded or not is another issue. The guy who won all three B races is a 3 on the road so he is a legitimate, albeit dominant, B cx’er.
John, I have to second the motion that you did an excellent job announcing.
I do know that I lined up in the 3 race two slots over from a road cat 1 as listed on his team’s website. I suspect there were others but they weren’t breaking any rules, right? I could have raced beginner men and maybe won a pair of socks, a sweet messenger bag, or maybe even a 12 pack of nearly expired hammer gel!! However, I would rather suffer and be pushed in a loaded “B” race than cruise through a “C” race…agree?
So the big question is who won the best Beard competition?
I’m another Cat3 from the Weekend races, I don’t worry about sandbaggers. I think it is just fun to line up with 60 other wackos and give it all. Let them enjoy their 10 seconds on the podium and ugly socks! I don’t think there is a need for a B+. There would just be another race that people would complain about. I think there are some people that wouldn’t be happy until there are about 100 races so everybody could have their moment of glory.
In the Bearded Elite Masters Competition it was a runaway victory. Al Senft, Colavita Sutter Home, took the prize and a top 15 placing overall.
John,
Your bike made a blog.
http://milesandmadness.blogspot.com/
Have a good week.
samej
Le Velo, the move John G mentioned viewing in France, is available for download on amazon.com, using their new movie on demand feature. I think their “unbox” application only works with windows XP or Vista. But, I’m running boot camp, and it worked ok after I did some goofy stuff with WMP. Rolled back to WMP 9, Ran the troubleshooter in unbox, and it worked.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_atv?url=search-alias%3Damazontv&field-keywords=le+velo&x=0&y=0