Sunday, September 20, 2009

Week 9, First Race

In short. The weather was good, The course was good . . . I think it even benefitted my riding style. It just didn't benefit my bicycle setup. Of the 38 starters I took 8th place. Not bad I guess considering I dropped the chain no less than 5 times. I tried using the 1x10 setup. I was using a chain guard on the outside, and a Deda Chaindog/3rd Eye on the inside. Seems to work for everbody else. I suspect the flaw comes in when you combine this setup with a long cage rear deraileur. Look the the picture below.

Look at the slack in my chain . . . (Yes I took as many links as I could out of the chain before the race) . . . the chain came off three time at the barriers. This might be why.
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The course was not kind to those left behind. A lot of the course was narrow, tight, and twisty. It's hard to pass people when it's like this. I didn't mind so much because it was fun. . . . I mean it's a race . . . After the start I was within eye-sight of the leaders. I was working my way up front, but when you drop your chain and have to stop to fix it, you have to let everybody you just past, pass you, then you have to repass those people again . . . x5 . . . you tend to loose sight of the front. I stuck with it anyway, I figured out where I was dropping my chain and took caution. I passed 5 people on my last lap and that was good, keeps me optimistic.
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Well I have to start someplace. It's not a bad place to start because if I get my chain issue figured out I should finish higher. I'm also going to start working on speed and repeated accelerations.
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Next Race
http://www.kansascitycross.com/images/stories/2009DBCCFlyer.pdf
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Week 9's numbers



1 comment:

The Unabashed Blogger said...

Congrats on the race; Nothing like sprinting over and over for most of the course due to chain issues.