Mud Palace

The cross race this past weekend took place in the midst of the SF bike expo at Cow Palace -- a San Fran convention center. Since the Cow Palace is mostly a big building surrounded by cement, the promoters had to be imaginative to create an interesting cross course. They took full advantage of the one dirt section (typically used to show livestock) and made us go around and around and around to use every square inch of land -- after going in enough circles its amazing how you can actually feel lost in such a small space.

Their was a steep hillside between parking lots which the promoters spent many man hours carving stairs into... about 40 or 50 of them (yikes!)

At the top of the stairs, the promoters imported some dirt (which turned into mud after a little rain) for us to go through before coming back down the very steep hill... onto more imported dirt which took a sharp right hand turn (it is not good to miss that turn -- i know)

Then a series of aerial jumps where tricks counted for bonus seconds! Oh wait... that was for the BMXers. Good thing -- i might have died going off those jumps!

But there was a little track section of bumps INSIDE the convention center created with more imported dirt. Little kids were added for additional obstacles (check out the tiny one getting air!)

It was a very crazy cross course indeed. But cross is crazy so it was fitting. At the end of the day I was battling it out for second before flying through a mud pit, doing a somersault, and bending my derailleur hanger. I was fine and ready to go, but my derailleur went into my spokes and I ended up having to run almost an entire lap -- by that point, i was not very speedy with my run, but got a lot of encouragement from the fans and made it to the finish line! My bike and I were very muddy :)

The fun day of cross ended with spectacular views on my drive home down highway 1... photos through the windshield from my phone don't do the views justice... but they were breathtaking