Season’s End?

Jeff Melcher concentrates before the start of his race.

Today my son Ryan and I went to Hales Corners to cheer for the racers I knew in the state cyclocross championships: Patrick Brock, Ben Marchewka, Brian Petted and Jeff Melcher.  The guys didn’t disappoint.  I had been worried that Ryan would get bored—he refuses to watch cycling on TV—but he got into the spirit of the event.  (He was especially interested in Planet Bike’s outstanding 15-year-old Sarah Huang, but for reasons I suspect had little to do with her racing prowess.  He’s 12 and, well … I guess it was the allure of an older woman.)

P-Bro approaches the barriers.

Tristan Schouten—it will surprise nobody—was the class of the professional men's field.

Anyway, good times all around.  And there were good times yesterday, too.  I spent two hours at Glacial Blue Hills testing my mountain biking skills.  On the upside, I didn’t crash.  On the downside, there’s a lot of work to do!  But there's also a lot of time between now and the 2011 WORS & WEMS seasons. 

Ben handles an off-camber turn.

One of the best things to come out of Saturday’s experience was the understanding that I could dress for 32-degree weather and ride in relative comfort.  Being in the woods kept me out of a northeast wind that would have made things uncomfortable.  But with the wind or without, 32 is still cold and a couple of years ago I wouldn’t have bothered.  Hopefully I can ride again before it’s really too cold.  I'm done with the road bike until 2011, but maybe I'll try Glacial Blue Hills again next weekend when it's a balmy 37 or 38!  Beats getting on the trainer.