Charm City Velo Records Blog

Wasn’t sure how many people were going to show up for this. If everyone that said they were coming actually posted, there would have been between 10-20. In the end there ended up being 5, which was much more manageable for a first shot at this.

Here;s a pic from the finish:

The Riders (in the order that they showed up) and their bikes.

• Kate - mad skills on a surly karate monkey.
• Mike - cx on a fixed gear pista with slick tires…tuff! (absent from the pic, he bailed partway through)
• Josh - can do logpiles on a Felt F1-X. skills.
• Chris - is fast. period. also on an F1-X.
• Daren - eye of the tiger on a frankensteined schwinn letour. this bike rules.
• Jill and Yo were in attendance, but decided not to race after doing hard labor the day before.

Stage 1: Patterson Park

Probably the hardest stage because of the sustained climb at the start. After the preview, I rode the first lap with everyone. I could write up a stage description, but much easier is posting a link to the video.

Results: Chris, Daren, Mike, Kate, Josh

Stage 2: Druid Hill Park

We rode out to Druid Hill for Stage 2. This was an abbreviated version of the charm city cross route (which is an excellent course involving sand and a “natural” dismount). Mike bailed for this round. Chris took it again with Daren behind, then josh and kate. On the way to Stage 2.5 (Dizzy Issie’s), We rode onto a construction site where josh tried to ride up a giant mudpile and kate ran up and rode down.

Stage 3: Riverside Park

With some food and additional carbs in our stomachs, we rode downhill all the way to riverside park. This was probably the most exciting course of the day. Short course that ventured onto a baseball field with 3″ deep mud and ended with an uphill paved sprint. Chris took it by inches with Daren in 2nd. Josh took 3rd and Kate 4th but was throwing hard elbows on her way to the finish. Stage 3.5 was complicated because Porter’s was closed for vacation, fallback #1 was thirsty dog and they were closed until 4PM, fallback #3 was packed full of college basketball fans so we ended up at Ropewalk. On the way to Stage 3.5 everyone was feeling a little punch and josh ended up riding side saddle and kate was doing superman tricks.

Stage 4: Federal Hill Hell

Basically, this was a circle with a big downhill and a big uphill. And the big uphill was hard. So hard that Kate saw fit to give me the finger. Chris and Daren sprinted up the hill on foot for another photo finish, with Chris ahead by a spoke’s width. Josh beat Kate out for 3rd.

Stage 5: Rash field

One of the keys to a cool cross course is a variety of surfaces, and rash field provided us with some nice fine gravel and a long stretch of sand with some pavement giving respite in the middle. The sand pit was not so popular and Josh made some disparaging remarks about my mother. When it came down to the end, Chris managed to gap Daren who came FLYING through the sand on foot. Kate followed and Josh rolled in DFL.