Born to spin

A Story of the 2004 NJ Cyclocross Championships 

Every bike race promoter hopes for good weather, but the sad fact is, there's just not enough to go around. Sooner or later, your going to have to put on a race or two in the rain. We had good luck so far in the Augusta 'Cross series in 2004. The first two weeks were sunny and warm, and the track was fast.  In week three, there was a gentle drizzle, hardly enough to make to mud. By week four, the week of the New Jersey State Cyclocross Championships, it all came to a spectacular end. 

Joe Saling called me that morning at six, while I was still in bed.

"Morning mate," he said cheerfully.  We had, for some reason, taken to calling each other mate, in a mock-Aussie way. "How's it look up there?" Joe lived about fifty miles south.

I didn't have to look outside. I’d been listening to the rain all night.  "I think it's raining."

"It's not too bad here, but I'm not sure how the electronics are going to handle the weather." Joe was was going to be our announcer, as he was at many of the major mid-Atlantic races. We agreed to play it by ear.  Joe would come up with his motor home, which had a generator, and we would see how things looked at race time. 

When we arrived at the Sussex County Fairgrounds at about 8:00 a.m. on race day, November 28, it was raining heavily and there was a steady 25 mph wind blowing, with gusts much higher. Racing in these conditions would be difficult, but the riders would do it.  For us, the bigger challenge was setting up registration and scorekeeping--paper intensive tasks which don't interact well with hurricane conditions.

Skylands Cycling promotes the Augusta Cyclocross Series—of which the State Championships are part—with Team Bulldog, a northwest Jersey mountain bike club, and it was good to have the Bulldogs there.  These guys are hardened trail racers, as well as sometime roadies, and a little torrential sideways rain was not about to intimidate them. As for me, on the other hand, I was a little overwhelmed by the situation.

            “Let me just clear the air,” I said to the group of ten guys, plus Lois, standing around in the rain with shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep into jean pockets.

            “Is there any way we are not going to have this race?”  I wouldn’t have been too disappointed if everyone wanted to pack up and head home, even though it would probably mean there would be no Cyclocross Championships this year.  Brian, the head Bulldog smiled.

            “We gotta have the race,” he said softly, but without an ounce of uncertainty.  I looked around at the group, equally Skylands members and Bulldogs.  Everybody was nodding, some were smiling, a few were almost giggling. The rain was pounding us.  Jaws were clenched and chins were jutting, but the consensus was clear.

            “Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re gonna race. Let’s try to get these tents up.”

            Easier said than done.  We had four pop-up canopies, two 10x10s, a 12x12, and another one even bigger.  They were nothing more than huge spinnakers, and we were the sailboats, as we struggled to open the tents and keep them from blowing away.  Someone had the idea that we should circle our vehicles to create a shield from the wind. This actually worked, somewhat, and we managed to get the tents opened. One by one, we staked the tents into the ground, and lashed them to each other and to the vehicles.  As I knelt to pound on a stake, I heard Chris, one of the Bulldogs, say that we should move everything back into one of the horse barns.

            For some reason,  this suggestion didn’t sink in for me, and I just blew it off.

            “No, we can’t do that,” I said as I stood up, not really thinking about it. It must have been a little frustrating for Chris. It was a sound idea.

Every time the wind gusted a little, at least one of the canopies threatened to blow away, and we had to hold on.  We had stakes, rope, a protective circle of trucks, and at least six or eight guys anchoring the tents, and they were still flopping around like crazy. One of the cross members on one of the tents snapped, a rope came undone, and the thing blew over on it’s side, pulling out two stakes. Brian started folding up the big tent.

The Augusta cyclocross course is unusual, because there is so much open space. ‘Cross courses are typically set up in the narrow confines of an urban park, where they double back on themselves frequently.  Not so in Augusta.  There are hundreds of acres of neatly mown grass, along with a gravel road, an asphalt road, a bridge, and, on the backside of the course, the horse barns.  There are five of them, long and narrow, side by side. They are post-and-beam construction with metal roofs and no walls.  I guess they use these things to keep horses in during the state fair and the numerous horse shows they hold here.