Author: Eric Cook

Of course I was sick over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  Of course.  Fortunately, there were a few great things happening in the Detroit area  to take my mind off of how miserable I was feeling.  On the morning of Thanksgiving, Robert Herriman (an ultra-endurance racer from the  Detroit area) hosts a yearly group ride at Pontiac Lake Recreation Area.  I believe this is the 14th year of this ride, and about 60-70 people  were present for a moderately-paced, snowy lap at PLRA.  It’s a great way to get your metabolism going prior to the day’s mass consumption, and I only went over the bars twice due to snow-covered rocks…

Now, on to the main reason for this post: the Detroit Invitational Cyclocross race held at Dorais Park in Detroit.  My friend Tony Cressey  alerted me to this event, and I’m so glad he did.  This is a free cyclocross race held at one of the many Detroit parks that the city can no longer  afford to maintain, so a group of guys calling themselves the Mower Gang have taken it upon themselves to perform the upkeep on the park so  that the local kids have a place to play.  They do this out of the kindness of their hearts and have no government funding; if you’d like to check  out more of their efforts and possibly make a donation, please visit www.mowergang.com.  The event is organized by CX Czar Jeff Wood, and  sponsored by the Racing Greyhounds and Cycle to Fitness as a thank you to everyone they race against during the year.  It’s a bit more  eccentric than your typical cyclocross race (is that possible?), featuring beer & bacon handups, an in-race card game, costumes, and a shortcut where racers must perform a tequila shot in order to pass.  Sounds awesome, right?

I had planned on getting into CX racing earlier in the year, but a mishap with a sheet of 3/4″ medium-density fiberboard ruined those plans – a broken big toe is not conducive to hopping barriers or run-ups.  Fortunately it healed prior to Iceman, but by that point in time, almost all of the CX season was gone.  So, DICX was my first cyclocross race.  As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I came down with a head cold on Thanksgiving morning, but there was no way I was going to miss this event.  It did take the fight out of me, however, so my race strategy was more along the lines of “let’s not get bronchitis” than “LET’S WIN THIS THING.”

The course was about 1.5 miles and featured a few sets of barriers, routes through very bumpy fields that really made me wish for front suspension, a segment across the old velodrome, a snow pile made from ice shavings collected from a local rink, a properly punishing spiral on a hillside, a run-up, and the previously mentioned tequila shortcut.  It was a 45-minute race, which turned out to be 6 laps.  My lap times were close to 10 minutes, whereas the truly fast gents were around 7-8 minutes per lap.  I was racing my singlespeed Traitor Crusade with a relatively heavy gearing, as I really had no idea what to expect of the course – I probably should have gone a bit lighter.  Anyway, the CX training I had done prior to breaking my toe paid off, and I had no trouble with my dismounts/re-mounts, barriers, run-ups, etc.  I only took the tequila shortcut twice, on my 5th and 6th laps, and I have no clue where I finished – there were probably about 150 racers, and I’m guessing I was mid-pack?  It really doesn’t matter – I had a great time, and I highly recommend this event to anyone who has even a remote interest in CX.

Here’s a link to a spectator video of the event, and here’s a first-person perspective.

– Adam Cefai