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Tales from the Trenches

The Battle for the 2011 Cross Cup in SM 35+ Cat 4

by John Deibert

This was my first season racing cyclocross, and I was apprehensive about it before the start of the season.  My goal was to do three races, because I expected nothing but horrible suffering, but after the first race, I was hooked.  I did well enough in the first few races to start getting call ups, and I started learning who my competitors were through some intensive internet stalking.  In early November, I made a post on our team's blog about how we could get into first place in the team points, and I laid out the primary path to that goal as "beat Joe Coffey", who had narrowly beaten me several times already at that point.  It seems that he and The Natural Way Racing Team were doing a little internet research of their own, because they saw my post, which included a picture of Joe racing at Xilinx with a big red cross-hair superimposed over his head.  Two weeks later at Castle Cross, that team had an army of riders present, both racing against us and loudly heckling us from the sidelines during the race.  They gained a lot of points on our team in that race, and I actually met Joe afterward when he told me "I enjoyed your blog".  That was when the rivalry started getting good, and it was great knowing that we all could share some laughs (and beer) after the races, and that we were all just out there having fun.  Joe and I came into the last race tied for first place in Cup points, and I chatted with him briefly before the race.  He  even introduced me to his wife, who took some pictures of us together.  Joe never even saw me in that race, and he did a great ride to beat me solidly and take the Cross Cup win in our category.  Our two teams shared beers and laughed and told stories about it all afterwards, and that's my best memory of the whole season: just a bunch of bikers enjoying a beautiful day outdoors, surrounded by friends and good people.  As hard as all the racing was, I already can't wait to take the starting line next year, where the big question on everyone's mind will surely be: did I heed the frequent advice I received about upgrading my cheap, heavy bike?