Another one in the books, it looks like Scott’s Theory on the Weather Patterns of Cyclocross National Championships (STWPCXNC) has held up for 4 years in a row; that is that the first year of the 2 year run at a venue will be crap (Ice and Snow in 2005 and 2007 in Kansas City, KS and Providence, RI) and be “nice” (relatively speaking) in the second (Dry in 2006 and 2008 in Kansas City, MO and Providence, RI).

Wicked exciting racing every day, particular highlights being the Juniors U19 race, the U23 race between Nic and Nic, Kraus in the Master’s Men 35-39, Mo getting the jersey back in the Women’s Masters 30-34, Cris being so close yet so far in the Women’s Masters 40-44, and of course the big show with Driscoll coming in 2nd!

This year’s course was challenging, original, and fun the promoters did a great job; but had some really odd elements that were annoying from purely a layout and staging perspective. Pedantic rant and laundry list:

• “Team Parking” was behind the staging area, completely inaccessable by car unless you came well before or well after the day’s events but not too far before or after, staff needs to be there to open the course to let you in/out!
• Port-a-Johns were a far walk from the aformentioned Team Parking Area, eventually 1 port-a-john was moved to the staging area
• The Pit was lopsided, 80/20 split from one pit entrance to the other
• It was even shorter from the Staging area to the Pit, so unless you had 3 bikes or 2 helpers… it made certain start line logistics harder than necessary
• The pit was too far from the bike wash, with no less than 3 course crossings to get there
• With the 80/20 split, long distance to the bike wash, and lots of mud on certain days, no way to take a bike every time through the pit unless you had 3 bikes (and 2 helpers)
• Bike wash was on complete opposite of course from team parking no “clean” route back to team parking. I just washed my bike(s) I don’t want to go through more mud to put it away
• No Pit Passes, luckily the tourism through the pit wasn’t as bad as in Jersey… (seriously, one guy not-winning doesn’t need 7 guys pitting)
• Metal stakes holding course banners down, great at holding a course together, also great at breaking your face on. Luckily by day 2, someone decided to put little Duct Tape balls at the top end of the stakes…
• Barriers were clearly and after-thought on this course, poor location, poor visibility for spectators, the 180 turn immediately after the barriers negated any barrier/remount speed/skill requirements
• Course Crossings were only half thought out, from the top of the course, the crossings were well placed to funnel you in to the middle to see everything, but there was no way to get out of that middle portion unless you ducked under some course tape or went all the way back up the hill and came back down along the perimiter, this improved throught the days of the event.
• No adequate location for me to take a tilt shift-photo from (which would have been great w/ 90% of the course being on the side of that one hill)

Seriously though, these are little things that could be said about any course. Some of my favorite races of the year don’t even have bike washes (or are just as inaccessible, but luckly the races have been early season where it’s not really a problem). I can’t wait to find out where 2009 and 2010 nationals are, I hope they’re in Oregon or somewhere west! There was a (very leading) survey available to racers before (and after?) the event which was biased towards Cyclocross Nationals being in the Mid-West (or Kansas City) every year due to the central location, to which I disagree. This traveling circus is a great way to help grow the sport and show the sport to casual riders and racers who would otherwise not travel to the event if it wern’t in their home town. For those who are traveling and racing, whether it’s on a plane half way across the country or all the way across, it’s still a full day of travel for me. Moving Nationals around from region to region is definetly the way to go, plus I’ve never been to places that have come up as possible ’09/‘10 CX Nationals Venues like: Bend, Portland, and Seattle; and without a Cyclocross Race I wouldn’t really have a reason, the desire, or the time to.