Ripping It Up at the Ham Lake Cross Race

What a great day of racing and what a perfect course for me at the Ham Lake Cyclocross Race! Flat and fast is how I like it and that is exactly how it was. I dusted off Tom Bengel and Rob Belz early but I'll likely be behind them at the State Championships when we have to go up some serious hills... Today's course was perfect for Lee Bengel too. I passed him on the second lap and got a decent gap on him but he clawed his way back and got in front of me with a couple of laps to go. I was "on the rivet" as Andy Frye says but I went around Lee on the last lap. I think the effort he put in to close the gap on me took a lot of energy out of him. Of course fellow B2 racers Bill Kuster (Loon State) , John Thompson, Dave Herbert, Paul McKinney, Dave Ludwigson (Loon State) and Dan Meyer (Loon State) were all ahead of me as usual. Although I wasn't too far behind Meyer for a while. Besides Tom Bengel placing behind me in the B2, I got John Stamm (Loon State) too. Stammer is still learning cross so I don't know how long I can stay ahead of him. Rob Belz (soon to be Loon State) dropped his chain one and one half times. How you can drop it one and one half times I don't know but he did. He had bushels of apples in his truck though from his orchard and gave them out to us. Score! In the women's race, Linda Sone won the B3 ahead of Linda Cooper.

Johnny Wyland (soon to be Loon State) had a good run in the C race. It was only his second ever cross race. He moved up a lot from last week. Jordan Cullen (Loon State) won his junior divison as usual. Nora Bengel had a good race too. The C race was won by Sam Meier. The kid, who is only 19, did two races last year so he's kind of a rookie still. He has improved a lot in the last few months. He was way up there in the B race too.

Some Crazy stuff happened in the A race. Doug Swanson, Aric Hareland and Adam Bergman kept trading off the lead. I had to leave before the end so I don't know who won. The Loons were cranking along today. Jim Cullen, on a course suited to him, was pretty far up in the race. Chad Macy and Barry Tungseth were cruising along at a good pace too. Dan Cleary was having a great day on his brand new titanium/carbon Bianchi. He had one of the crazy things I mentioned happen to him though. Just after he jumped the barrier in front of us, he got back on his bike and snapped the Campy carbon seat post. Ouch! He cut his leg but it wasn't too bad. He was going to quit but race official Matt Anderson gave him his 60lbs Surly Pugsley to ride! Dan took off and was moving pretty good. Another rider bunny hopped the barrier in front of us on the fly but stopped immediately and said his bike was wrecked.

All in all, kudos to my Loon State teammates and Ride On Red Lantern! BTW, I got 7th in the B2 and 29th overall.