Tailwind '09 Cyclocross Underway

Tailwind CX #2 - Waterford Tales

Don't you just love the temperamental seasonal affective disorder of CX races? They start out blazing, pass through a mudcaked session or two midway, and end on an ice glazed slipfest in December (with often an even more bizarre heat blast some time in November). If you can avoid getting sick in the heart of cold season, your body still has to contend with and adapt to the fickle whims of the cosmos.

Sunday's Tailwind race at Waterford was Exhibit A. The most notable visual image, besides the blunderplummet Orange Crush flyover (or my favorite name, the Rhinover), was the dust, particularly in the first lap of each race as the packs held together. It rose like a brown LA haze, more in line with a particulated race in the desert than a Southeast Michigan dirt fest.

This year was a break from the past few seasons with its flip of the first and last race venues. Maybe Robert Linden was hoping that he'd trick the gods into an early cold snap and finish in balmy Springfield Oaks in December, but the gods are tricksters themselves, not easily fooled. It was both hot and humid on Sunday and the course was one dry bumpy monster. (By the way, I nearly drove to Springfield Oaks just out of habit.) The sharp cracks of the muzzle loading event nearby were an ominous, yet oddly fitting presence as bikers whipped and wove their way over the rumbling field.

What Waterford lacks in topography and forest was more than made up for with those grumpy bumps, the flyover, and Joe Brown's masterfully sadomasochistic (he has to race on them, too) skill at weaving its lines in any way that makes life challengingly creative for those fools willing to plunge into a CX daymare.

Stumbling over the flyover must have been the ultimate humiliation, since I heard more than one lowly participant grumble about its presence. It must be working in just the evil way it was intended. My understanding is that it was built by Robert Wozniak and it took three trips to haul it from its demented Frankensteinian laboratory to the unwitting course. Word is, and this will be a relief to many who had to scale its hoary heights, it won't come back until Springfield Oaks. Something to look forward to on a bitter cold day at the end of the season, eh?

Keep in mind, the truly demented appear to hearken from Rhino Country (Brown, Wozniak, Linden to name only a few), so cast all aspersions where they are due. I'm not sure if it's something in the water or just a region that, like Australia, took in the most unruly members of society at one time and we now deal with their spawn--where else?--on CX courses.

Add Anne Schwartz to the Rhino list already mentioned, who comes forth each year to stamp her ruthless mark on contenders no less qualified than Marney Smiley and Kelly Paterson. There's something pernicious in those who don purple and yellow.

One exception to Rhino rule is the A race, dominated convincingly on Sunday by Specialized's Michael Wissink, though I see that Wolverine Jeff Weinert did give him a run on Saturday. Perhaps, if cut, they too bleed purple and yellow, but that's only a viscous rumor on my part.

As an aside, ringer Rudy Sroka slipped into the Sunday race to lay claim to top honors in the 45+ category. According to Lake Effect's web site (who let these Ohioans in anyway?), he's "a former US National Cycling Team member, a 6-time New England Road Champion, and a rider for the US National Team in the amateur Tour de France." So, if you got your tail handed to you on Sunday, though this be madness, yet there is method in it. (Quote of Top Bard Bill). I'm sure it's of little consolation to Rhino Mark Wolowiec, Saturday's winner, but Mark has to share the honors now and then to keep things interesting.

Aside two: the Wolverines are the sleeper, beginning to make inroads into the Rhino CX hegemony. Weinert's move there seems to have sparked some intensity into the club that keeps on giving.

Nice opening weekend to what looks like another great Tailwind CX series. Rev up your cowbells.