Photo from here.  I love racing in Chicago.  Every person on the line I feel I can call a good guy and racing buddies.  The jokes, the laughs. the great competition.  The last month has been spent racing in Chicago and it has been one of the better months of racing.  My results were pretty steady and the fun quotient was through the roof.

We left off after the awesome course and race in Northbrook.  Next up was some Saturday racing at a golf resort in the western suburbs.  Lucky for the the golf course, it was fairly dry.  When we raced in Cincinnati on a golf course I am pretty sure the golf course was destroyed.  Anyway, I had a great start, but was immediately having trouble with the first set of barriers.  I fell a couple times, but I also rode the sand pits every lap. 

I love sand pits and these were some of the best by far.  Because they were bunkers for golf, you had to drop in and pop out of them.  And the first one I would ride into super fast and skip the first 8 or 9 feet of sand by launching in.  The second one had a turn and a super technical step out of it.  So much fun.  There was very little time on the course to get bored.  I had a great time.  There was also some sweet partying and cheap beer at the hotel pool before and after the race which made it a real race weekend.

Woodstock was the next and my final stop on the Chicago Cross Cup schedule.  It wasn't my best race.  But I did happen to get tangled in the most awesome way on the run up.  On the second or third lap, making the turn into the run up, I washed out and in the process dropped my chain.  Well, I ran up over the barrier and stopped on the side of the course to fix my chain.  Well, somehow, while I was fixing that I got my handlebars wrapped up in a folding chair.  I tried to shake it off in a mounting frustrated frenzy, but soon, things were way worse, so I sat down for a second in another chair next to the course.  Collected I got everything righted, but not until Hemme got around me.  On that flat open course, as long as he kept pedaling, his super power was nothing I could match.

I love the cup.  I cheered on the next couple races in a bunny suit and handed up beers.  It was a damn good time and just the kind of racing I needed before three weeks of travel.  I am so freaking excited for Oregon!