Race #3 of the River City Bicycles Cross Crusade is in the books. After a double-header opening weekend at Alpenrose Dairy, the series continued in fine style with a turnout of 1,277 racers at Portland International Raceway yesterday.
The “Heron Lakes” course was flat and fast, not to mention unseasonably dry. And, unlike most Crusade courses, there was very little dismounting. In a fun twist from previous years, the Crusaders made the barriers on the famous run-up only half-tall in order to entice riders to bunny-hop them. It was a tricky maneuver to do well, especially in the heat of racing, and the vast majority of racers opted to run up.
I went out on Saturday to pre-ride the course and caught this unlucky fella giving it a try (sorry for the low quality, it’s from my phone)…
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Our friend Matt Haughey was out there too, and got this video of another rider showing how it’s done…
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I couldn’t do it nearly as smooth as the guy above, so I opted to run each time. I saved my barrier problems for the other infamous place on this course — the big cement block tabletop.
Drone master and Oregon Bicycle Racing Association Executive Director Kenji Sugahara shared some excellent aerial video of the race (below). At about the 1:19 mark you can see my front wheel hit the leading edge of the cement block and everything goes goofy. Luckily, I recovered.
Here’s the still from Kenji’s video showing moment of impact…
And the fun video…
2014 Cross Crusade Heron Lakes from Dronescape Media Consulting on Vimeo.
I didn’t shoot too many photos, but here are a few more of what I got just to give you a sense of what it was like out there.
We are very lucky here in Portland to have such a quality race series to participate in. Thank you OBRA and the entire Cross Crusade crew! Stay tuned for a preview of this weekend’s big Tailgator competition at race #4 out in Hillsboro.
— BikePortland’s 2014 cyclocross coverage is sponsored by Sellwood Cycle Repair.