U.S. Open of Cyclocross

Race weekend number six in a row, Boulder, CO for the U.S. Open of Cyclocross! After a busy weekend of midterms, Emma and I loaded are bike bags into the minivan and headed north to Midway airport in Chicago. From there it was a short flight to Denver, the tram to the baggage claim, and then a bus ride to Boulder. Our longtime family friend Eric Stonebraker snagged us from the bus stop in his Subaru Outback (the official vehicle of Boulder) and then we hit the hay.

Saturday morning, I built up our four Boones while Emma grabbed some groceries. In the afternoon Karl Hendrikse, fellow Wisconsinite and our mechanic for the weekend grabbed our extra bikes and bags to drop off at the course. Emma and I spun over to the venue and hopped on course to pre-ride.

Emma had a solid race, taking fifth in a strong field. Not bad for someone who just got over a bout of bronchitis! I had a slow start getting a little swarmed up the start hill. I made up some ground in the first off-camber, dismounting and running around some carnage.

Photo: Philip Mathys

I came into lap two in around 15th place. Over the next lap, I worked my way into the top ten and settled into a group fighting for 5th through 8th. Garry Millburn, Troy Wells, Yannick Eckmann and I traded off every now and then with varying paces. We started to close the gap on Cody Kaiser and with a few laps to go, I hit the front. In the flat, back section of the course, I had it down to about ten seconds. Naturally, I proceeded to slide out in a corner while on the front bringing the entire group to a halt. We got going again but were never able to catch back up to Cody. We’d lost a little bit of our mojo and Yannick had a mechanical taking him out of our group.

Gary, Troy and I stayed in limbo fighting for 5^th place until the very last lap. Troy put in some digs going into that final lap and on the long straightaway before pit two I counterattacked. Troy lost a few bike lengths on us, but Gary hung on tight into the last two climbs and descents before the steps. Going up the steps it was all or nothing since there were no more opportunities to pass and not much of chance for a sprint from behind. As a result, we sprinted up the steps as hard as we could. At the very top, Gary remounted on my inside a split second faster and got around me, sealing up fifth place.

Photo: Philip Mathys

Overnight the storms rolled in as predicted and when we woke up in the morning there were 6+ inches of fresh snow. The course was an awesome muddy mess with frozen chunks of muddy ice. I had a better start than Saturday sliding into the top ten. after the stairs. From there I settled into the group fighting for 6th through 9th. I felt comfortable at the pace but going into the final third of the race I started to fade. Like many others, my hands started to freeze solid and I had serious problems clipping in. I ended up 12th which was a little disappointing, but there are plenty more races this season and I'm sure I'll be back racing in Boulder again!

Photo: Kenny Wehn

First and foremost, thank you to Eric Stonebraker and Carrie Morrill for generously hosting Emma and I. Next up, thank you to Karl Hendriske for helping transport our gear to and from the races as well as amazing work in the pits. Huge huge thank you as well to Greg Keller and the Boulder Junior Cycling crew for letting Emma and me crash in their tent all weekend. Massive thank you to Greg as well for taking on the frigid pit work for me on Sunday so that I could keep racing hard on clean equipment!

Finally, thank you to my team, Linear Sport RT and our sponsors: Trek, Bontrager, Wheel & Sprocket, Styled Aesthetic, Kettle Moraine Preservation and Restoration, and David Hobbs Honda. Thank you as well to Trek Race Shop, Englewood Grass Farm, Mike's Mix, and Sram. Thank you all for reading and be sure to follow along on my social media @cswartzz. Next up, Collegiate MTB Nationals in Missoula, MT!