Bay Area Super Prestige Cyclocross

 The first of the Bay Area Super Prestige cyclocross races, held at McClaren Park in San Francisco, is a race that I will not forget!  I drove down to the city with Gabe Cheese and our friend Nathan Garrett, out of sunny Sonoma county and into frigid San Francisco, socked in with fog.  Of course.  Because of traffic, we got there later than I would have liked, and I only had time to pre-ride half of the gnarly course.  The bit I did pre-ride included the steepest "run-up" that I could just barely "hike-up" while pushing my ghetto mountain/cross bike and trying so hard not to fall backwards...the bumpiest descent ever...off-camber sandy turns...and an 1/8 mile gradual climb (long for a cross race)!!  I boogied back to the start just in time to line up alongside about 11 women in the womens' B category including my friend Alexis Collin who works at Bike Peddler.  I felt nervous and cold.  We started the race, and within about 100 yards, we had to run up the "run-up" of doom:)  What a great way to skyrocket the heart-rate I'll say!  At this point, I think I was already towards the back of my category, where I basically stayed for the rest of the race.   I managed to pass one girl on the technical downhill section, but other than that I pretty much just maintained my position.  It was a tough race and a tough day for me, but I'm happy that I finished 8th and had the opportunity to practice my still very novice cyclocross skills out there.  Congrats to Sarah Piccolo who got 10th in a very stacked womens' A category!!  Looking forward to the 2nd race in the series in 2 weeks so I can get another crazy workout and continue to hone in on my skills.  Thanks for reading!

Sunday was the first BASP race at McClaren park in San Francisco.  The course was tough and the temperature was freezing! I was on my feet a bunch working leading up to the race and I just felt like lead. There were 15 girls at least in the race, maybe 20. I started out with a bad start, which led us too the steep and awkward run-up.  Karen Brems (world time trial champion in 1994 and member of 2000 Olympic team) wiped out hard right in front of me. Our race was stacked. In addition to her, there was Sarah Kerlin, Kristin Drumm, Stella Carey, Kathleen Hannon, Sarah Bamberger, Maureen Kuntz, MaryAnne Hunter to name a few. All the aforementioned ladies got out hard and with Karen able to recover from her fall, I finished 10th. After the hill climb the bumpy descent was challenging me. Maureen passed me here as I wrestled to reposition my seriously dropped chain.  At this point I lost the group and raced alone feeling pretty lousy in the legs. I was happy I did top 10 although I would love a top 5. I still managed to beat at least 5 other strong ladies and learned a lot in the process. Next week we go to Aptos for the Velo Bello and number 2 in the Norcal Cup.

-Sarah P.

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