Sunday, October 23, 2016

Rock Lobster cup II Lighthouse Field, Santa Cruz

 You have to get up pretty early in the morning to be the first one at the course. At daybreak folks were repairing the overnight damage to the course-there was almost none. Seems like the homeless campers were respectful of our event and did not try to dismantle an entire days work constructing the course. There has never been a bicycle event of any kind at this iconic location , even though it has been on the minds of cyclocrossers for over 40 years.


Brendan Lehman summoned up his best course-architect instincts and crafted  what might be one of the bumpiest and most difficult cyclocross courses of the season-even without any hills or sand. Nearly all the folks who raced at the event said that it was a very fun course , even with the relentless pounding of the uneven, choppy ground.

One person who seemed to thrive on the challenging track was Emmett Tuttle who at 15 years old finished 3rd in the men's A race.

Tour De France veteran Laurens Ten Dam riding for Giant/Alpecin finished his first CX race with a smile !

 David Kalcic finished well in the A men's race as his brother Brian did well in the earlier junior race. Father Frank provided special event-labeled wine for prizes at the race.


Yes, there was a Radavist sighting-John even got onto the course and raced the 35A men's event.
                                                           
There were a ton of team bikes all over the course. We were well represented in riders and bikes . With few exceptions the race was viewed with very positive feedback-maybe our music was a little loud-we can tone that down in the future-assuming that we get the chance to do this again.

 Notable people in the long history of local cyclocross were in good supply-David Gill kitted up in the first year team kit from 2004 and did his laps. Huge win of the day has to be Campbell Steers ride in the women's A race. After team mate Caroline Dezendorf dramatically crashed out of the race it was up to Campbell to take over as the point rider for the team. She rode away from the field with some log hopping skills . Mei Yan won her race in the women's B race convincingly. I hope to have the rest of the race stats soon. Thanks to Frank Kalcic, Clif Bar, Giro Design, Garrett Kautz, S.C. Mountain Brewery and all the team sponsors and personnel that made this all come together. We made history-and history has a habit of repeating.
The Le Mans style start of the men's A race -music from Jimi Hendrix-riders from everywhere.

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