The PACC ‘CXtwiLITE’ Race 3 was a few weeks ago.  With all of the Tour Down Under activities, I didn’t get around to posting the results.  So, here are the results: Lap Animation and Times, and here is a more informative Race Summary.  The only thing I’d have to add is that the sprint for third, fourth and fifth was an entertaining finish, and it looks like I need to work on my sprint finishes.

Moving on, the old Trek also benefited from the cyclocross race.  How?  Well, I found  an Ultegra 6600 53/39 172.5mm crankset for $20 and matching Ultegra 6600 brakes and derailleurs for $40 at the swap meet.  So while I didn’t win anything at the race, I did come home with some shiny Ultegra parts.  I also bought a Cleansweep X 140mm brake rotor that matches the 185/160mm rotors on the Eriksen.  However, I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do with it.

Anyway, I swapped the old 105 components out for the new-to-me Ultegra parts the day before the Tour Down Under community stage ride.  My motivation for swapping the parts was primarily the crank.  The old 105 crank had 175mm arms and 50/39 rings and the new Ultegra crank has 172.5mm arms (like the Gunnar) and 53/39 rings.  I also swapped the original Tange-Seiki Levin headset for an identical headset.  The original was noticeably indexed, and was bad enough that I stopped riding the Trek for a couple weeks while I waited for the new headset.   Anyway, the 164km ride went well with no mechanical issues.

Finally, I fished up the ‘Strava Ride Base Mile Blast‘ with 658 km (409 miles) ridden between 6 January and 31 January.  There are still a few hours left in January, but I think I’m finished, for now.  According to Strava, my January totals are 31 hours and 745km (463 miles).  If I’m correct, I think the last time I posted a monthly mileage update was December 2006.  As much as I’d like to think I rode a lot this month, all of this needs to be put into perspective.

PACC is holding four CX races in the Focus CXtwiLITE series this summer on Tuesday evenings, and the first race was yesterday. I raced the Gunnar and finished 5 out of 26, one second behind fourth and two seconds in front of sixth.  Overall, it was a great race.

In addition to a course map (courtesy of my phone), you also get some spectator video of Open and CX A as well as on-bike video of my first lap in CX B.

Course Map:

View PACC Summer 2011/2012 CX Race 1 in a larger map

Video:

Results: PACC CXtwiLITE Race 1 (Race Animation)

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?