Dam Cross - Race Reports, Photos & Banter

[MarkW]

Waterloo Cycling Club helped to put on Dam Cross the second cross O-Cup of the season this past weekend. It was a great day of racing and the whole weekend went smoothly thanks to the volunteers from the club, Woodstock and the race community. I’ll list everyone that helped below, but I may forget a name or two as the weekend was kind of a blurr. Add any names I missed.

Building the course on Saturday was fairly quick and well organized. A good number of club members came out to help (@Andrew_Meyer, @jeremyhaak, @KevRidesGravel, @bike_daniells, @Eva_Bako), thanks so much! Ontario Cycling event staff were also out helping all day. Our friends in Woodstock that run the weekly cx series Nordic Cats came by put in many hours pounding stakes and even suppling barriers and some extra push-in stakes.

Race day saw many of our usual cross racers out as well as a couple club members that gave their first race a try, thanks and congrats @valentinacastilloc and @joemonks. Would love to hear about your races and experience here.

Many people helped where they could on race day, @Natalka kindly volunteered to help at registration all day, @jeremyhaak was on course maintenance and well everything duty, @JBeattie and @KevRidesGravel took up announcing duties and heckled/cheered all day. @jnet, @Andrew_Meyer made the drive to help with tear down and many of the racers stuck around for a bit to help as well.

It was a great team/community effort, thanks everyone for making it happen. Next year we’ll bring Dam Cross back to it’s full glory and hopefully make it a double header again as a regional race on Saturday and an O-Cup on Sunday.

Questions, comments and feedback and of course stories are greatly appreciated,

Mark

P.S. I’m terrible at taking photos unless I drag along my dslr, which I didn’t, so I’ll let everyone else supply those.

[Andrew_Meyer]

Here are a few pre-race photos.

[Andrew_Meyer]

Had a great time helping at the finish line calling bib numbers to help with the backup time keeping as the racers passed by. It seemed to go quite smoothly, I was happy to help with both the setup, teardown and number calling.
It was fun to watch too, there were some good races. The weather wasn’t bad either, not too cold and never got raining hard, just some light drizzle at times.

[joemonks]

This was an absolute blast, my first CX race and wont be my last.

Objective 1 - Finish
Objective 2 - Dont fall off
Objective 3 - Dont fall off in front of any cameras

A massive thank you to Mark for running the coaching sessions and enormous thanks to everyone involved in making the event happen: set up/take down, marshalls, announcers or just plain encouragement. I am looking forward to next years races.
Gracias and muddy knee.

[bike_daniells]

Thanks for keeping this one going, one of the best venues in the province and close to home!

[MarkR]

Thanks for taking the lead with both the race and this thread, Mark!

This is the race to try next year if you’d like to give cyclocross, or racing in general a go. While cyclocross calls for a few skills a rider can continuously hone and try to master, the gong-show fun of it, combined with this course’s flowy turns and riotous, low-consequence technical sections, means anyone can have a blast for 40-60 minutes.

I was pretty happy with my race, riding a pretty consistent pace, with no major incidents and zero moments of internal self-flagellation over what the heck I’m putting myself through.

My race report:

I raced the first ocup in St Catherine’s, so happily, I received a call-up to the front row of M2 and parked myself right beside Mark W. The long start sprint led into a sharp left hole shot, which was pretty fun to sling into across some sketchy gravel (thanks WCC Wednesdays!). I was maybe 5th or 6th in.

With the first half of the course on mostly flat terrain, there wasn’t a lot of room for passing until the first sandy section which shook the group up. It was a blast to send it off of the firm rooty ground onto the sandy beach. I found that flying off the 1 foot drop (not nothing on a cross bike) and booking it like David Hasselhoff across the smooth beach was a good way to make up a few precious seconds. As if that wasn’t enough sand, a second, errr, sandier section had riders once again sending it off a small drop, this time into some chundery, churned up sand. I eventually had to hop off and ride each lap after getting bogged down on the beach. The nexus of the two sand sections was prime viewing ground for spectators and watching the E1/M1 race there in particular was a hoot, with awesome displays or power, along with hilarious (sorry) wipeouts.

The second half of the course featured some steep pitches, as well as wide, flat straights. All good territory to gain or lose some places. I don’t remember the details, but I somehow managed to find myself in second after the first lap, with fellow club member and race winner Adam M already ahead by over 15 seconds after lap 1.

Luke E passed me in the early parts of lap 3, as he rode away to clinch a comfortable second, and by the last lap, I had settled into 4th. It was pretty “fun” to see how hard I could push myself to try to catch 3rd position. That last lap was pure CX spirit - gutting myself, sprinting out of each corner, white knuckling it through the off-camber muddy turn and going full gas up the final straight. Alas, got there three seconds too late, but isn’t the thrill in the chase?

Awesome race. Already looking forward to next year. Helmets off to all the folk who played a role, big or small, in making it happen.

[LucasW]

Proof that it’s possible to both look cool (sorta) and suffer simultaneously!

Thanks to Mark and everyone that volunteered for such a great event. Course was a blast and there were some great features as always that help differentiate those who are fit vs CX skills vs people who have both (I’m certainly not type 3).