the cyclocross season is winding down, marked by the finale of the Surf City CX series. i had heard the crew needed some help setting up on friday so i went down to watsonville and helped set up the course. we didn't have much room to work with but i think we made the best of it and the laps ended up being quite long, especially cuz of the rain that fell overnight.

so i showed up sunday and it didn't seem too wet...until i saw the course:



man, that thing got blown out. it was still hard and quite fast when i had left sat. afternoon. wow. anyway, all races turned into slogs (borderline death marches depending on the categories) but everyone said it was a cool course and i was pretty happy with how the whole thing turned out. the mens A's was one of the death marches, Barry took off and won by 2 minutes, my bike went south and i had to kick it old school on the borrowed SS (thanks Brent!) for the last half of the race to finish second, and Andy got off the plane from the far east that morning, ruled the trans-continental class for a third place. that order was also the series results, Barry crushing with me and Andy hanging on for the scraps.

I had talked to barry while waiting for the start, annd we agreed to donate our overall prizes to the NorCal MTB league, which was having a benefit dinner sat. night. Andy joined in as well, so between the three of us we gave $500 to help High School Mountain biking. it seemed like a good cause, a good way to spread the love and feel like i was working towards something useful, plus the whole NorCal thing is close to my heart as it all started out of my old High School just after i graduated.