The fifth Port Adelaide Cycling Club (PACC) cyclocross race was yesterday, Saturday 13 August 2011.  This time I raced in the B-grade, and had a good race.  I led the race for the first half of the first lap (yes, that would be a grand total of about four minutes), and finished seven of nineteen.  PACC has a great race animation, results and a race write-up over on the PACC CX Blog.

View the PACC CX 5, 2011 race in a larger map

This is the race course as captured by the new phone using Google My Tracks— the timing is a little off due to when I began and stopped the GPS.  See distance, time and speed details.

The Gunnar recently had a new King headset installed thanks to BMCR. The new headset is a huge improvement over the clunky, stiff and generally trashed 10-year-old Cane Creek. Not much else to say here, it’s a King headset and it does exactly what you’d expect.

Since the last race I also picked up new set of WTB ‘All Terrainasarus’ tyres from Road Rage. The new tyres are significantly taller and a little wider than the various SpeedMax Pros that I had been using over the last five years.  The extra volume allows for lower pressures, which helps grip, but the tread ‘packs-up’ and doesn’t shed mud very easily. As a result, the All Terrainasarus is marginal in wet and muddy conditions.

In all honesty, I got these tyres primarily for non-race use that includes commuting to and from singletrack on the road and towing the Burley up and down the beach paths.  The WTBs handle very well on the road, and the tread works well enough on the dirt.  The old SpeedMax Pros were probably a little more capable in dirt and mud, but they are squirmy and wear very quickly on the road.  Overall, the WTBs feel faster and smoother than the old tyres, but do give up some grip in the wet.

On to a few photos:

I raced my first cyclocross race, and it turns out, the first cyclocross race held in Adelaide . The race was hosted by the Port Adelaide Cycling Club (PACC), and held in the Adelaide park lands just south of the CBD.

The early morning weather was cool and rainy, though my ride into the city was mostly dry. The weather was sunny and cool by race time, and the track was dry to slightly damp. I entered the ‘A grade’ with the elite roadies and such (I fall into the ‘and such’ category). The ‘A grade’ race was short at around 40-45 minutes. The lower ‘B grade’ only went for 25 minutes, and that seemed quite short.

There were 25 racing in the ‘A grade’, and I started near the back. The race was fun, and felt much like the ‘dirt crits‘ that the AMTBC used to run in the summer. The Gunnar performed well, and the only change I’d consider making is either lowing the tyre pressures (currently 65/75psi F/R), or perhaps switching to something wider and taller than the 32/30mm Speedmax combo I’m using.

Anyway, I held out and was lapped by the top four finishers a couple hundred meters from the finish. I finished 14th out of 25, total time 43:32, and missed being on the lead lap by 14 seconds. Overall, I’m very happy with my result. The full results are posted on the PACC CX blog.

More photos and video:

• Eternity Cycling
• Smudge Monkees
• Sentimental Photos
• Videos – Open, Kids, Grade B, Grade A

Another Video… I believe there may have been more cameras than bicycles at the race.

adelaide cyclocross. from Sam Roberts on Vimeo.