Monday, October 31, 2011

Boulder Cups

This weekend Zane, Zack and I raced the Colorado Cross Classic on Saturday at the infamously goat-head riddled Boulder Reservoir, and the Boulder Cup on Sunday at the newly built Valmont Bike Park. On Saturday all three of us raced the very short junior race, this was Zack's first race of the year after his broken collarbone earlier this season. The course was fast and fun with a couple corners becoming very muddy as the day went on. By the way the mud is not typically Colorado cross weather, the races seem to only be muddy when the big races come to town. Normally the courses here are dry, dusty and fast. On Saturday, Zane finished 1st, I finished 2nd, and Zack in 4th... After a mere 15 minutes of racing, kind of ridiculous.

Sunday was a different story all together, this was the first year the Boulder Cup was held at the Valmont Bike Park, and the crowd turned out in numbers. The tunnel of noise on the 5280 run up was awesome. The amount of people at the race was almost rivaled the Superprestige in Zonhoven, at least as far as American cross goes.  We raced for a full 60 minutes, another ridiculous amount of time to be racing for. The Boulder Cup was even more muddy than the Cross Classic, mostly due to the nature of the course. Pit changes were basically mandatory or your wheels pretty much stopped spinning all together. Zane and I went 1,2 again after passing over 100 CAT 3 racers during the course of the Day. The weekend in Boulder was amazing, the size of the events shows how much this town loves their cycling.


Zane and I on the Podium
Zane Zack and I at the Boulder Res


-Spencer Downing
@spencerdowning on twitter


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