Crossing Over For Fall

I blame Damien Rice for tainting my return to cyclocross after an 8-year absence. How did “Blower’s Daughter” get stuck in my head for the whole race? It is hard to get the game face on with such gentle music. I wanted Pantera to provide the theme music for my crushing return! Sure I raced once last year but that doesn’t count as I had just arrived in Colorado 48-hours earlier and I was trying to hold my own at 7,000 feet on a borrowed bike! I might as well have punched myself in the stomach with only a straw in my mouth to catch my breath and jumped on an angry horse without a saddle…that was pretty much the feeling I had racing cross at Pike’s Peak.

Well this year is different! I have my own new carbon Tommaso cross bike and some good fitness left over from Ironman. Of course I don’t know how much help the endurance fitness will be since racing well below one’s aerobic threshold for 11+ hours is not drooling down one’s chin at 20-beats over one’s aerobic threshold while sprinting out of every corner and jumping 18” high hurdles for 45 minutes! I don’t think I could find another cycling sport the exact opposite of Ironman…but there I was toeing the line 20 days later no aerobars or pointy helmet.

Luckily I am on a team with 14 great guys all dressed up in VeloNews team gear. It helps when you are suffering to see a familiar face or at least a blur of red and black through tears…I mean sweat during a race. The Velo boys are friendly, supportive and very fast. I hope to learn from them as the season progresses. More so I hope to prove that the new Tommaso carbon bike is a strong bike that can handle the tough conditions of cyclocross.

If it is going to break…cross will break it. Just ask the bulge sticking out of my shoulder neck area…it is the end of my clavicle detached from my sternum…thanks cross! Actually I mean that point more to the bike itself. Round one went very well and the Kore wheels (same ones found on the Velocita SRAM bike) held up great and the carbon frame felt like a custom bike made just for me. It loves the climb on the Hutchinson tires and it accelerates really well on grass and dirt. Even with too much PSI in the tires the bike behaved well and was easy to control.The SRAM Rival components were spot on and the internal cable routing kept the shifting crisp. While it was not a podium performance for me it was a great day of testing for the bike.

This weekend the bike gets to go for another race test in Boulder. I hope to have some video footage to share or at least some pictures. The best part of this job is the fact that my riding and racing today will make for a better bike for the customer next year. So when it is time for you to buy a Tommaso you will know it has been ridden, raced (crashed) and put through the ringer on the way to you! We want our customers to enjoy cycling as much as we do. We want you to over-play not over-pay! And if my performance doesn't improve soon can we throw in a marathon at the end so I can catch up?