Friday, August 19, 2011

cross crusade official 2011 schedule

Here it is, the Cross Crusade series schedule:

Oct 2 Race 1 - Alpenrose Dairy - Portland, OR
Oct 9 Race 2 - Rainier High School - Rainier, OR
Oct 16 Race 3 - Heron Lakes Course, Portland International Raceway - Portland, OR
Oct 23 Race 4 - Washington County Fair Complex - Hillsboro, OR
Oct 29 Race 5 - Old Mill District - Bend, OR
Oct 30 Race 6 - Old Mill District - Bend, OR
Nov 6 Race 7 - Barton Park - Estacada, OR
Nov 13 Race 8 - Pro Paddock Course, Portland International Raceway - Portland, OR

I am thrilled that Cross Crusade will visit PIR not once, but twice this year. I assume this happened because Sherwood is off the schedule this year and also because the USGP Portland Cup -- now renamed the Deschutes Brewery Cup -- has been moved to Bend and takes place a week later than usual. This was done to help elite-level racers better prepare for US Cross Nationals, which have been moved out to January 2012 -- in Madison, Wisconsin. (Yeah, good luck with that. I certainly won't be there.)
Quite a bit of calendar-shifting and rule-changing was done in the off-season to accommodate the elite-level racers who need a later National championship race to prepare for Worlds; and also to purposely thin the ranks of the entry-level racers at Nationals because their numbers at Bend simply overwhelmed USA Cycling race organizers and officials).

I would have skipped USGP anyway this year, even if it had stayed in Portland. But now that the same course has become a Cross Crusade race, I will include it in my schedule, meaning that I'm racing five times this year and twice at PIR. That's probably all the time and energy I will have, for reasons which I'll discuss later on.

Meanwhile, here's a little teaser from last year to illustrate why I love racing at PIR so much.
It's the mud, silly.

Cross Crusade Race #4 PIR from Burk Webb on Vimeo.

No comments: