{"id":17635,"date":"2013-11-30T23:15:04","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T04:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/?p=17635"},"modified":"2013-11-30T23:23:41","modified_gmt":"2013-12-01T04:23:41","slug":"2013-detroit-invitational-cyclocross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2013\/11\/30\/2013-detroit-invitational-cyclocross\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 Detroit Invitational Cyclocross"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today was my first time attending the CX Czar<\/a>‘s outstanding Detroit Invitational Cyclocross race<\/a>. This properly casual race at Detroit’s Dorais Park\u00a0(aerial image<\/a>) takes place at the intersection of Mound and Outer Drive, just south of Eight Mile at the site of the historic Dorais Velodrome<\/a>. This was one of the constantly hard non-endurance races that I’ve done, and very likely the most enjoyable. With a course that snaked around the lumpy and rutted fields of the park, near a burned out house, past some dumped jetskis, along the cracked concrete velodrome, through a tight spiral of death on a hill side, and featured a dumped light pole crossing as a barrier and a double-barrier rundown, it was hard. But awesome.<\/p>\n

One nifty twist to this race is that, not long before the end of each lap, one can choose to consume a shot of tequila<\/a>\u00a0and take a shortcut, or ride a rough\/hard section that adds on quite a bit of distance. I’d estimate that 4 or 5 passes through the shortcut would make up an entire lap, but balanced with the tequila… it’d be a hard, strategic choice. It’s a great twist, and perfect for the race. In retrospect I probably should have taken the shortcut more often, as I only went for it on my last two laps (out of six). I fell once or twice (gently) while trying to turn corners, stayed upright on the rough sections, and had a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

The most surprising part of today was what I ended up winning. Just before the race started, as I took my place at the start, close to the end of the pack, the raffle was called out. I could barely hear the number, but pulled mine out and thought it might have matched. I asked for it to be called again and yes, it was mine. I wasn’t sure what I’d won, but it was soon apparent that it was something nifty: a new, custom bike from Motorless City Bicycle Co.<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was really surprised, and somewhere there are a couple photos of me with a rather ridiculous smile on my face. I’m still a bit in shock about it, but I’m really excited about how it’ll end up. Chris from Motorless City was there and informed me it’ll be a drop bar, rigid steel disc frame intended for fatter tires, which sounds a whole lot like what I’m going for with the Vaya<\/a>. He’s also got a thing going with TRP and wants to fit it with their shiny new HY\/RD<\/a>\u00a0hybrid disc brakes.\u00a0I have a feeling the Vaya will find a new home once this is available…<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I need to email Chris with my basic geometry likes and such, but I’m a bit too spent from today’s great race (and beer) to put those thoughts together now. That sounds like a nice project for a slow Sunday. I’ve already got thoughts swirling around… I’m excited about this.<\/p>\n

Wrap this all up with a great time hanging out at Kuhnhenn<\/a>\u00a0with a bunch of Velvet Elvis<\/a>\u00a0folks and other people from the race and it’s been a darned fine day.<\/p>\n

(Here<\/a> is the Garmin data from the race displayed by Strava. Here are three photos of me from the race; the first taken by Bob Bruce<\/a> and the other two by Marty Shue<\/a>: 1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was my first time attending the CX Czar‘s outstanding Detroit Invitational Cyclocross race. This properly casual race at Detroit’s Dorais Park\u00a0(aerial image) takes place…<\/p>\n

Continue reading2013 Detroit Invitational Cyclocross<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17635"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17639,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17635\/revisions\/17639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}