Yesterday was the 2nd day of a two day cross outside Lawrence. It was a super power course. Ryan Trebon would have loved it. Before the race, I wasn’t that excited about the new route. It was way too much riding and wind for my liking.

Joseph Schmalz called me about an hour before the race and said he was out training and wanted to know if he should come by and race. I said, “Sure.” He has been training at altitude before the USGP in Fort Collins and is heading down to Guatemala with the US U23 National Team at the end of the week for a 10 day stage race. He wanted to do some intensity, with no pressure, and has pretty low (good) cyclocross ranking points, so he was volunteering to throw his points into the USAC random number generator and hopefully lower all our points.

Joseph has had a pretty great season this year with some big wins in Texas, Lawrence, and Iron Hill Criterium. Cross has been an emphasis for him historically, but with Nationals being a month later, he’s doing it right and staying fit late into the season.

The race was fun. Brian was more motivated and pulled pretty much the first two laps. The 2nd time over the barriers, I didn’t dismount and put in a dig up the climb back to the finish. Joseph and I got a little gap, Andrew caught back on, but Brian got gapped a little. Joseph pulled super hard the next 3/4 lap and eventually Andrew lost my wheel. About a 1/2 lap later Joseph pulled over and left me on my own. I wasn’t that thrilled to be riding the next 45 minutes with a 30 mph North wind. But, it worked out fine.

I was having a much better day than the day before. It was just an energy management issue. There weren’t many places on this course to rest, no big descents, not too many corners in sequence where you can get in a break. But, I was gaining time every split, so that kind of gave me peace of mind and allowed me to concentrate on going faster by setting up for corners and doing all the technical skills better. It is funny how if you can stay within yourself, your speed actually increases.

Joseph went back to 3rd and was riding with Brian, chasing up to Andrew, when he fell. I think Brian plowed into him, but I’m not positive about that. Anyway, there were lots of loose, off camber corners that were tricky and one got the better of him. He got up moving, but jacked up his right calf pretty good and eventually pulled out. So much for his ranking points.

Andrew Coe finished 2nd again. He was going pretty well. Brian was right behind Andrew in 3rd. Adam Mills and Bill were racing together all day, but Bill pinched his front tire with 1/2 lap to go and rode to the finish on a flat. It would have been fun watching that play out.

I’m kind of up in the air about my schedule for the rest of the month. I need to get a new fork for my 29’r if I’m going to go over and ride Berryman MTB this weekend. I’m not sure a 4-5 hour MTB race is all that good for cross, but screw it, I like doing it.

This lack of sleeping after these cross races is kind of bothersome. I have no clue what that is all about. It is especially bothersome with NPR doing fund raising the last few days. I wish I was rich and I’d just send them a boatload of $$$ to have them just get back to their regular programing.

They even mowed a warmup loop in the field at the top of the course. Here I'm riding next to Joseph.

Keith Walberg took this photo. Notice I don't even have to have both feet clipped in to clear the barrier.

Keith walking the course taking great shots.

Climbing back up to the finish on the 2nd lap. Me, Joseph, Andrew and then Brian.

Yesterday, for me, seemed officially like the start of fall here in Kansas. It was never above 55 degrees and pretty damp all day. It is strange racing cyclo-x at 80 degrees just 2 days ago and now it is 30 degrees cooler. But the weather wasn’t what got me noticing the fall so much, it was the squirrels running around like crazy, doing their fall busy work, that started it.

This year seems like a banner year for squirrels here. There are millions of them everywhere. I like squirrels. I don’t really think of them as rodents, but I think they officially are. It not like there are lots of different types of wild animals that live in my yard that seem to cohabitant with me, but I like them just for their personalities. Well, for some of their personality traits.

Squirrels are super entertaining. For me and for all my pets. Bromont is officially a bird dog, but he wants to get a squirrel something serious. And the cats stalk squirrels nearly as intensely as birds too. I’ve never seen anyone of my pets catch a squirrel. There are way too many trees nearby for them to escape. But, that doesn’t seem to bother them the least. It’s the chase, not the capture, that is the intrigue.

I just like watching squirrels do their squirrel thing. There aren’t too many wild animals that seem to like to play as much as a squirrel does. There seems to be plenty of food around here for them, so most of the time when I see them during the year, they seem to be chasing each other and playing squirrel games. And it’s not only two, sometimes 3 or 4 play the chase thing. It is great.

Anyway, I don’t know if this has anything to do with the number of squirrels around this fall, but this was also a banner year for walnuts, black walnuts. Even though there wasn’t much rainfall this summer, there are an incredible amount of walnuts on the ground this year. They are everywhere. And they are hazardous for a bike. I don’t collect walnuts in the fall, I don’t why not. I guess because it seems like a lot of work for not much return. I did it one year, but had them on the porch, drying in the sun, and the squirrels eventually stole all of them. I didn’t mind.

But, like I said above, they can be treacherous while riding. They are on the bike paths, gravel roads and the worse is when they are just in the grass, under leaves. I’m pretty much only riding a cross bike now. I think that is because I’m too lazy to take the tubeless cross tires off my road wheels, but maybe it is because I’m enjoying riding gravel more this fall. I don’t know. But, I’ve come close to loosing control a couple times the last couple weeks by hitting a walnut or two when I’m not expecting it.

And where there are walnuts, nearly for sure, there are squirrels. And one thing that is not good about squirrels is their unpredictability when it comes to fleeing under stress. They never seem to be able to make up their minds on which direction is best to flee. That is pretty unnerving when you’re trying to avoid them on a bike. I’ve come pretty close quite a few times the last few days of plowing over a squirrel. Yesterday I ran over one’s tail. I thought it was all good, but he decided to do a U-turn about 1 foot from my front wheel. I was lucky I didn’t just squish him completely. That would have been depressing.

Anyway, I’ve been pretty fortunate to not have any real altercations with either a squirrel or walnut yet this year. But, you never know, the fall is young and I have a bunch of more encounters ahead I assume.

This guy got pretty lucky having its' human pile up the walnuts at the base of his tree.