Richmond Festival of Cross

Jean and I went down to Richmond for the 2-day omnium event at the Richmond Festival of Cross. We had a great time and strongly recommend it to you guys for next year. The fields were much smaller than what we're used to in the MABRA and MAC, but races were spirited and full of "Hupitude." The races were structured as a 2-day omnium consisting of races at two venues and a one-lap time trial on Saturday’s course.

The Venues

- The Chimborazo Park venue was fantastic. Lots of elevation change and a great mixture of grass, pavement, dirt, stairs, and long stretches of real cobblestones -- all with a great view of the James River and downtown Richmond.

- The Bryan Park venue was unlike any 'cross race I've done: flat, fast, and not terribly technical, kind of like a road crit with a few dirt and grass sections and two sets of barriers. I did the entire race in my 48-tooth big ring and actually spent the road sections drafting other riders (at least until I popped from the lead group).

- The Omnium consisted of two races plus a one-lap time trial of Saturday's course. Each event was weighted evenly, so it really paid to race all three and do well in the TT. Unfortunately, prizes went only one deep for the omnium and 3 deep for each of the races.

The Races

- I signed up for the 35+ Omnium. Unlike MABRA, VACX still uses the old-school A, B, and C designations. Masters, however, get their own category. We had about 21 guys in the 35+ group and a smaller group of 45+ guys that started one minute later. I had a decent start and slotted into the top 5 for the first two laps. That's when I started to fade -- losing several spots until I found a second wind and made back a spot or two to finish 6th. Technically and mechanically it was a smooth race.

- After recovering, and after meeting up with George, who had come down for the B race, I got a wild hare and decided to sign up for the B's. The field was much bigger, about 41 guys. I had a decent start and slotted into the top 10. The speeds were higher than the 35+ race the field was a little out-of-control going through the opening grass turns, but things settled down mid-lap. My legs were cooked from the earlier race and I allowed George and a few other guys to come by. On the second lap I clocked a cobblestone with my rear tire and was convinced I’d flatted [I’m calling it a “mental flat”]. I attempted a bike change in the “pit,” but I had neglected to check the air pressure on the pit bike before the race (my Grifo’s tend to leak air rather quickly). So I tossed the pit bike and jumped back on the A bike, losing several more spots. During the next lap Jean pumped up the pit bike tires and I took it the next time around to finish the race. By the end I was 22nd and completely wasted from the heat, adrenaline, and constant elevation change of the course.

- Less than 30 minutes later, I did the one-lap time trial. All those laps on the course really helped here: I rode cleanly and gutted out a 6:20 lap, good enough for 3rd place in the Masters.

- Sunday’s race was completely different. I had a great start on the road, making the turn onto the gravel in 3rd place. I got crossed up with a guy in an early turn and had to close a 20 foot gap but came back out onto the road sitting on the back of a five-person lead group. Somewhere in lap 2 or 3 I made a small mistake and lost contact with the lead group. Losing contact was trouble, because the road sections were long enough that drafting was critical for a few minutes recovery. Scott T. did well to hang with that lead group after I popped off. After that, I started my now-common fade and lost several spots. I made two or three back in the waning laps and finished 8th on the day, good enough for 4th overall in the omnium.

I strongly recommend going down to Richmond for these races. They were low-key events but the races were hard-fought and fast. We especially need more ladies to race, because Jean’s A field had only 3 riders each day – not enough for her second-place finishes to qualify for upgrade points. But she did win some $$ – enough to fund a fantastic dinner at small Italian restaurant on VCU’s campus downtown.

Links to some great pics here and here.

Squeal Like a Pig

Getting Rid of Brake Squeal and Chatter From My TRP EuroX Brakes

I wanted to share my two week odyssey to get rid of excessive squeal from my 2007 TRP EuroX brakes on my carbon rims. The 2007 TRP EuroX brakes do not have any kind of toe-in adjustment. [Note: the newer magnesium models do]. On my old bike, this was not a problem because I was running aluminum rims and the brakes did not squeal or chatter. This year, however, I have a new "A" bike set up with carbon rims (older model Zipp 340 wheels). With these wheels, the squealing on the rear brake is simply unbearable and the fork chatter was harrowing.

I tried a variety of fixes:

- Bending the arms of the brake shoes to create toe-in (clamp the shoe in a vise and grip the arm with a open-end wrench)

- Replacing stock cork carbon-specific pads with yellow SwissStop pads. SwissStops can be used with both carbon and aluminum rims, as long as you’re careful to remove any aluminum shavings from the pad before using them with carbon rims.

- Increasing the yoke angle (by raising the straddle cable carrier), but at the price of decreased mechanical advantage.

Finally, I replaced the brake shoes with after-market shoes from Velo-Orange with adjustable toe-in. With these you need to adjust the toe-in first and then install the shoe into the brake arm. This turned out to be the magic bullet. I was able to dramatically increase the toe-in with these shoes and completely eliminate both squeal and chatter, even under hard braking conditions.

With renewed confidence in my brakes, I’m able to carry more speed into turns and hit the brakes at the last possible minute, rather than scrubbing speed all the way up to the turn. My speed through technical sections has increased noticeably as a result.

- I also ran across this helpful video on adjusting cantilever brakes. A little simplistic, but one helpful tip was to wrap a rubber band around the back of the brake pad in order to adjust toe-in.
I know everyone says that "brakes are overrated, because they just slow you down," but in 'cross, better braking = more speed.

Cool Stuff on the Interweb!

I've run across some really cool cyclocross-related stuff recently on the amazing Interweb.

First up are some great video sites with excellent cyclocross and bike racing video content:

www.cyclofile.com (hat tip to Tim Johnson for this link)
www.vimeo.com (Great HD content here)
www.crosstube.net

Google, in honor of its 10th anniversary, put up a vintage search index from 2001, complete with archived web pages from the same timeframe (at least to the extent possible). A quick search on cyclocross turned up some real gems:

Napa Valley Velo's Index of Mud
(who knew that mud was classified into 8 different categories?)

The registration site for the 2001 USCF Cyclocross Nationals in Overland Park, Kansas.

The 2001 UCI Cyclocross Rankings

I'm sure there's a ton of other cool stuff out there - so check it out!