solon cross day 1 - clockwise
once again, another stacked cleveland field for the solon cross race. got there early to check out conditions and it was expected - muddy.
field busted open immediately and saw me and paul martin in a two man break. paul sat on my wheel as i tried to gap in the techy sections. i'd pull a gap on him and then he would reel me back in on the the flatter open power sections.
fearing the 3rd place rider would catch up, i continued to pull convinced i'd pull a gap on paul that he couldn't bring back.
on the last lap, he let me have it. i reeled him in close twice, but he got me by less the 3 seconds at the line. 2nd place on the day, good to get my cross legs back.
solon cross day 2 - counter clockwise
same course, but drier and clockwise.
got off the front with paul real quick after a near t-bone into derrick (sorry 'bout that) into the first section of single track. paul ended up on his back side nearing the end of the singletrack and never seemed to kind of recover from it - i nearly ran him right over.
soon, i was caught by shawn, gerry, mike and matt. matt and gerry powered away.
i was right behind shawn and mike, gerry and matt were not far ahead - and then they pulled away.
matt was having some rumored shifting issues and shawn pulled his trump card in the closing laps - a clean bike.
shawn went flying by gerry and then matt, then took the well deserved win. matt was 2nd, and then speedgoat got the last 3 podium spots. gerry in 3rd, mike in 4th and myself coming in 5th.
hats off to brett for a great course topped off by cold brews at the end of both races. nothing is better then feeling like heart is going to burst out of your chest while seeing double and covered in mud - only to get cleaned up to grab a cold brew.
cross season rocks.
sologoat out
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