Port Adelaide CC's second cyclocross race for 2011: Sunday 22 May

Here's a quick race report to try to counter some of the northern hemisphere CX withdrawal symptoms.  If you want to see more head over to our website cx.pacc.org.au

It's well and truly autumn here (fall) and Sunday we held Adelaide's (South Australia) second CX race. By second race, I literally mean the second. Ever.  It's all new to us. Hardly anyone knows what they are doing! With the obvious exception of our imported guru, Neil Ross (former head of Canadian National Cycling Centre and married to Tara Ross), and a couple of US and European visitors.  We have the support of Focus Bikes, SRAM, and Select Physiotherapy for PACC's FOCUS CX & THE CITY cyclocross series and we race in the Adelaide Park Lands, which is a mile of parks which entirely ring the Adelaide CBD.  We are in a section of the park that is mostly lawn, with bitumen bike paths, gravel and mud maintenance tracks, and mulched wooded areas.

We had strong growth in rider numbers over last month's race, with over 75 riders entering the second event, and 36 riders lining up for A-grade, with some gun MTB and roadies alike trying out CX.  It had been raining overnight and the morning's temp peaked at 14C (57F) which is pretty cold for us, there was a pretty strong wind blowing making life pretty hard for the half dozen of us that spent 2 hrs taping up the course prior to race start.

We ran 4 races, MTB/Open (for non CX bikes, which included one unicycle), Kidz 'come n try', CX-B (which includes all women) and CX-A.

In CX-B with a smaller field Margaret 'The American' Shanafield (originally from Reno Wheelmen, now in Port Adelaide CC) out hustled and out heckled Stephen Kirby, who is better known for bike bike polo exploits, finishing ahead of Jeremy Smith, Gemma Kernich and Paul Zalkauskas, all better known for their summer track riding.

Madge wore down her opponent with taunts such as "you'd taste better if you were a jelly baby" and "you've got a flat tyre, sugar".  Serves Stephen right for wearing a Team Jelly Belly kit.  In his first B-Grade cameo, Neil Ross takes a starring role sneaking in some run up practice. Cheered on by the drunken and rowdy masses, he slings his FOCUS bike in true CX style, to rapturous applause. Yes, we Aussies are happy drinking beer from longnecks (750ml) at breakfast time.

In A-Grade Neil Ross, Aron Huysmans (former pro wintering from Belgium) Mark Chadwick, Shaun Lewis, James Hanus and Josh Smith all looked like early contenders from the starter's whistle. Youth looked like winning over experience with Hanus going out hard from the gun and leading the first two of 6 laps with a reasonable gap, only to fade in the second half of the race.  The others worked together well and there were a few attacks but no one really could get away.  Smith, who crashed four times in last month's race and still managed third, only fell twice this time and still managed to hang on to the leaders despite the blistering pace.

Unfortunately lapped riders became a factor late in the race, with Lewis being chopped and crashing with only 500m to go.  Lean came through with a clear margin after a late lap surge, over Huysmans, Smith, Ross and Lewis.  Lean tricked the commissaires who kept ringing the bell, but you get the idea from the video: