Putting On Our Climbing Legs

We had another good cyclocross practice today at Royal Oaks Park in West Bend. This was Week 3 of 7, but I’m calling it the halfway mark because I did a new bike shakedown there on July 31 before the series began. During that July 31 session—my first experience with 1x gearing—I learned how challenged I would be to climb a tough hill with a 40T chainring and an 11-28 cassette. Sure, I could get up the steepest climbs at Royal Oaks, but that’s not the goal. I need to get up the big hills of the WCA series—Manitowoc and Grafton—lap after lap, at race speed. Those are hard enough to climb when conditions are ideal; imagine them with tall, wet grass.

So, my Trek Boone is now outfitted with an 11-36, giving me more climbing gears with no compromise on top-end speed. I didn’t have that solution in place in time for the practice season opener, but it worked well last week on a mostly-flat course and today on the hilliest configuration we have used so far this year. I didn’t even need to install a new chain; this was a simple cassette swap. (And I was able to bring the project in far below the $125 I had expected to pay.) I’m very happy with the performance of the bike now.

Last night’s heavy rains left the wooded trails of Royal Oaks soft and damp, so today’s course took the short way through … which meant using the west side of the sledding hill to make the course long enough. Aside from that concession, the grounds were in great shape. With my new bike set up properly, I felt like I was in great shape too. I didn’t have an answer for Wade Loberger (Team Wheel & Sprocket), winner of our practice race, but I was a strong 2nd Place. Practice is working for me, putting an edge on my fitness at just the right time. It’s a hard transition after months of long-steady-distance training, but it’s going well.