Hermann Cyclocross: Epic
This should be a story of cyclocross racing, or training, or some sort of gush about Sawyer's exploits. The word for the weekend is most definitely "epic", but not for any of those reasons. Read on.
This weekend is Hermann Cyclocross Weekend, arguably the best-run most innovative challenging weekend of cyclocross in Missouri. This is not a knock against the Bubba series or the Alton, IL "Pride" series, both of which are fantastic, but Jeff steps it up not just one but several notches. Saturday gives us a night race under lights, and then Sunday we run the same or only slightly modified course. And there's individual winners and an overall winner. Many people overnight in Hermann, especially since the course is always laid out in City Park, which also offers overnight camping, and it's a nice festival atmosphere.
Sawyer & I decided to camp for many reasons: fun, cheaper than a hotel, satisfy Cub Scout/Webelos badge requirement, etc. We would get over to Hermann Saturday in time for me to race the Cat 3 field. Then camp and on Sunday Sawyer could choose to race either the Beginner field or the Cat 4 field, whichever he preferred.
Things were working pretty well according to plan--we got down there with just enough time to pick a spot and pitch the tent (no photos--too busy doing stuff to snap them) for me to get warmed up and take a few practice laps, and for Sawyer to take some, too. While I raced, Sawyer played soccer on the adjacent soccer field field with TK's and Deanna's son. Inside the last lap, I saw Sawyer cheering for me just after the mini-barriers and I yelled at him to please meet me at the finish line with some water.
I got across the line and was totally spent and found Sawyer who greeted me with a water bottle. Dan Singer was there shooting photos and said something to me about lightning and getting rained on. I initially scoffed, but then he showed me the radar on the iphone.
Suzanne Johnson and Sam Klucker were kind enough to have us move the tent to slightly higher ground under an "E-Z Up" they'd set up near Sam's parents' travel trailer. We took them up on the offer and I moved our car over there. The rain came, the premier race of the evening started with sprinkles and, during the first lap an air-to-ground lightning strike was observed and they rang the bell for 1 lap to go. Yes, the P/1/2/3 field got to race two laps.
The rain poured for awhile but I hadn't yet gotten out of my race clothing. Finally showered, and then it started to ease up. Sawyer and I puttered around and at about 11pm we settled in for the night, read a little, then turned off the light.
Sawyer fell asleep quickly, but I was having problems. The rain kept on coming. The tent kept us relatively dry, but it was pretty big stuff blowing through. Even with the rain fly over the top it was there was still spray occasionally making it through the screening.
At about 11:45 I whipped out the iphone and checked the radar. There was a pretty intense cell--almost entirely red--that was about halfway through over the top of Hermann. I tried to judge from the animated radar how much longer it would be until the cell cleared us, and I guessed maybe 15-20 minutes based on how long it'd been raining/blowing really hard. A few minutes later I heard motorized commotion along the road--kind of a zooming back and forth. I just figured it was one of the campers who'd headed into town for a few pints at the Tin Mill and was getting back. Just after midnight I heard footsteps outside our tent and thought I saw a flashlight waving around, then heard knocking. I unzipped and poked my head out of the tent to see/hear a Hermann city employee telling Sam that the creek was topping its banks, that there was a flash flood warning for the area until 4am and that they might want to consider moving to higher ground now while there was still time.
It took a bit of time to wake up the living dead, aka Sawyer, who tried to convince me that he was okay sleeping in the tent, but when I impressed upon him that it was hard to sleep in water we finally were able to start packing up. I threw on clothes we got everything packed up and into the car. I looked over at where we had originally pitched the tent and where I'd originally parked the car and noticed that another car was sitting there parked and it had water up to its tailpipe. Then I looked a little further down the road and saw just the hipline and above of a friend's Suburban. He had brought the whole family down to camp for the weekend! They had packed their stuff up, then gone to help others move their stuff, and in that 10-15 minutes' time the water had risen to the point where they couldn't get their stuff out.
I drove our car and stuff to higher ground and left Sawyer in the car with the keys while I went back down to help others get their stuff out. We helped a guy who was cycling from Boston to somewhere west get his Burley trailer and other stuff up to higher ground so that not everything was lost, and rescued some more bike equipment from getting washed away. Jeff as there helping folks rescue what they could.
Here's a link to Sunday's news story on the flood.
At one point during pack up/rescue operations I asked Jeff if he was still planning on racing on Sunday, because I wanted to know if I should try to find a place to stay in Hermann or just sleep in the car or something. He laughed at me and accused me of being a true bike racer, never one to miss a race, and assured me that it was cancelled.
So, at 1:30 am, Sawyer and I headed back to St. Louis. I called Pat and let her know we were safe and what was going on.
Cyclocross lessons-learned:
This weekend is Hermann Cyclocross Weekend, arguably the best-run most innovative challenging weekend of cyclocross in Missouri. This is not a knock against the Bubba series or the Alton, IL "Pride" series, both of which are fantastic, but Jeff steps it up not just one but several notches. Saturday gives us a night race under lights, and then Sunday we run the same or only slightly modified course. And there's individual winners and an overall winner. Many people overnight in Hermann, especially since the course is always laid out in City Park, which also offers overnight camping, and it's a nice festival atmosphere.
Sawyer & I decided to camp for many reasons: fun, cheaper than a hotel, satisfy Cub Scout/Webelos badge requirement, etc. We would get over to Hermann Saturday in time for me to race the Cat 3 field. Then camp and on Sunday Sawyer could choose to race either the Beginner field or the Cat 4 field, whichever he preferred.
Things were working pretty well according to plan--we got down there with just enough time to pick a spot and pitch the tent (no photos--too busy doing stuff to snap them) for me to get warmed up and take a few practice laps, and for Sawyer to take some, too. While I raced, Sawyer played soccer on the adjacent soccer field field with TK's and Deanna's son. Inside the last lap, I saw Sawyer cheering for me just after the mini-barriers and I yelled at him to please meet me at the finish line with some water.
I got across the line and was totally spent and found Sawyer who greeted me with a water bottle. Dan Singer was there shooting photos and said something to me about lightning and getting rained on. I initially scoffed, but then he showed me the radar on the iphone.
Suzanne Johnson and Sam Klucker were kind enough to have us move the tent to slightly higher ground under an "E-Z Up" they'd set up near Sam's parents' travel trailer. We took them up on the offer and I moved our car over there. The rain came, the premier race of the evening started with sprinkles and, during the first lap an air-to-ground lightning strike was observed and they rang the bell for 1 lap to go. Yes, the P/1/2/3 field got to race two laps.
The rain poured for awhile but I hadn't yet gotten out of my race clothing. Finally showered, and then it started to ease up. Sawyer and I puttered around and at about 11pm we settled in for the night, read a little, then turned off the light.
Sawyer fell asleep quickly, but I was having problems. The rain kept on coming. The tent kept us relatively dry, but it was pretty big stuff blowing through. Even with the rain fly over the top it was there was still spray occasionally making it through the screening.
At about 11:45 I whipped out the iphone and checked the radar. There was a pretty intense cell--almost entirely red--that was about halfway through over the top of Hermann. I tried to judge from the animated radar how much longer it would be until the cell cleared us, and I guessed maybe 15-20 minutes based on how long it'd been raining/blowing really hard. A few minutes later I heard motorized commotion along the road--kind of a zooming back and forth. I just figured it was one of the campers who'd headed into town for a few pints at the Tin Mill and was getting back. Just after midnight I heard footsteps outside our tent and thought I saw a flashlight waving around, then heard knocking. I unzipped and poked my head out of the tent to see/hear a Hermann city employee telling Sam that the creek was topping its banks, that there was a flash flood warning for the area until 4am and that they might want to consider moving to higher ground now while there was still time.
It took a bit of time to wake up the living dead, aka Sawyer, who tried to convince me that he was okay sleeping in the tent, but when I impressed upon him that it was hard to sleep in water we finally were able to start packing up. I threw on clothes we got everything packed up and into the car. I looked over at where we had originally pitched the tent and where I'd originally parked the car and noticed that another car was sitting there parked and it had water up to its tailpipe. Then I looked a little further down the road and saw just the hipline and above of a friend's Suburban. He had brought the whole family down to camp for the weekend! They had packed their stuff up, then gone to help others move their stuff, and in that 10-15 minutes' time the water had risen to the point where they couldn't get their stuff out.
I drove our car and stuff to higher ground and left Sawyer in the car with the keys while I went back down to help others get their stuff out. We helped a guy who was cycling from Boston to somewhere west get his Burley trailer and other stuff up to higher ground so that not everything was lost, and rescued some more bike equipment from getting washed away. Jeff as there helping folks rescue what they could.
Here's a link to Sunday's news story on the flood.
At one point during pack up/rescue operations I asked Jeff if he was still planning on racing on Sunday, because I wanted to know if I should try to find a place to stay in Hermann or just sleep in the car or something. He laughed at me and accused me of being a true bike racer, never one to miss a race, and assured me that it was cancelled.
So, at 1:30 am, Sawyer and I headed back to St. Louis. I called Pat and let her know we were safe and what was going on.
Cyclocross lessons-learned:
- stairs suck and I need to practice
- I was a sissy in some of the corners; I need to practice cornering on dry better
- my remounts still are not very good
- on the flip side, my dismounts were pretty damn good last night to the point where a few times I wondered if I had maybe temporarily become somebody else for that brief instant in time
posted by cleeland at 2:21 PM
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