Snyder checks in from Nor’East
“Welcome to Wosta’h that’ll be a dolla’h twenty five sa’h” (toll booth Willie).
Those are the words that lets me know that I am no longer in Durango and I am back to the mother land of Mass. I always forget how much the tolls rob you around here, it cost 8 dollars in tolls to get home from the airport which is only about a 54 mile drive…Dang. Enough about that and on to the real reason for this update, I am back east for two weekends of cross racing and for the Thanksgiving festivities with the rest of the Snyder contingency.
This weekend was a classic it is my favorite race of the season for two reasons one is that it is 10 minutes from my house and the other is because there is a “horse Jump” that for some reason only I can ride and no one else can and it is a huge advantage to ride it.
This year I thought was going to be one for the books, it had been raining since Tuesday so I thought sweet it’s gonna be a muddy one but to my dismay it stopped raining Friday night and got “wicked” windy and dried the place up. So instead of being a slop fest it was bone dry and a highway, oh well. Having not raced any of the Verge series races and not having any points I was last row last call up and this normally isn’t much of a problem but back East everyone starts like rabbits and the fact that it was so windy made it tough to move up.
As the race moved along I was able to make some lets say less then favorable passes and hop my way past a few riders to make it to a decent 15th place, not where I wanted to be but it was a move in the right direction. I made some cash, a little better call up for the next day and remembered how to really race cross.
Day 2:
It was on they changed the course up in my favor it was a lot more technical and a good course for an all around rider. From the gun I felt great and made my way up to Broderick’s wheel in about 9th or 10th and I was pleased about where we were and we were making some good ground working together taking some mtb’er lines when boom catastrophe struck and I broke a chain. No need to fret I have a pit bike so I got the pit bike and got myself back up to 11th when boom I broke a chain ring guard and lost a bolt. Due to the broken chain ring guard I had to keep wrenching my chain out of the little space in between the chain ring and the guard so that slowed me down a lot and relegated me to about 19th place with 1 lap to go. I put in a big effort on the last lap and made it back up to 17th by the line. Again not where I wanted to be but it shows that I can be in the UCI points for next weekend.
All in all I think it was another classic Sterling it was a lot of fun and a lot of anguish but that is the reason I keep coming back to the race year after year to try and redeem myself, it’s a lot like my cross version of Mt. Snow. On that note it is raining again today so I am going to do some more rain dances and hope for a wet one next weekend in Rhode Island.
