Labagh Woods CX Racing - Chicago Juniors - Fall 1989

The great part about racing in Chicago back in the late 80's and early 90's was the location of each weeks race. I'd ride there and ride home in about twenty minutes. If this photo doesn't capture how much fun Cyclocross is I'm not sure what could. During those years the only "realy" cx bike was the aluminum ALAN. My POS was an old steel Schwinn Letour that had 27" wheels. I stripped it down, painted it black and orange and called it the Landshark. I mounted 700c clincher wheels and knobbies and the smaller tire size helped with improve clearance. I had wide mouthed caliper brakes but as you can see in the photo, the rear brake just caught all the mud it could. Labagh woods, when wet, was like riding through sticky goo with leafs thrown in to the mix.
Sorry for the quality of these photos. They were screen captured from a DVD/Slide conversion.