The final PACC cyclocross race of the winter was today.  It was a sunny and warm day with no mud to be seen.  The course (map) was similar to the previous courses, but with a huge spiral, and a couple good mulch run-ups, which were both quite rideable. Here’s what my phone and Google Tracks thought of the course:

View PACC CX 2011 Race 6 in a larger map

As usual, I rode the Gunnar.  There were no major changes from the last race, save airing the tyres down from 45/50PSI to 30/35 (F/R).  The All Terrainasarus tyres did very well at the lower pressure, and I think something like 28/32PSI might work a little better.

So, the Gunnar did well, and I had a great race.  Before the race I decided that I was going to put in more effort than the last and either blow up before the finish, or place higher.  In the end, I placed fourth, which is a decent improvement over the seventh place finish in the previous race.

Dan borrowed Rachel’s Specialized Sirrus so he could try out a cyclocross race.  The Sirrus had about 2 kg of extra weight removed, the brakes swapped from ‘American’ to ‘rest-of-the-world’, and the old 32/30 Speedmax Pros swapped on for the race.  Dan did well, winning the B grade.  Here’s the Sirrus before and after:

The full race results, race animation and a write-up are over on PACC.

Also, I’d like to thank everyone at PACC and those who helped organize, setup and tear-down the races.  The cyclocross series was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the next race.

Here’s a great video of the first lap of the CX B race from kdcd.  I’m the one in the “authentic” 2009 U.S. Postal Service Pro Team yellow jersey :

How many funny, strange, weird or scary expressions can you find?

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:

Photos from the 2011 PACC cyclocross series, race 2.  Video and results over on the PACC blog.