Boulder Cup

This was a new venue this year, at the Flat Irons Mall. It was held in this retention pond/park between the mall parking lot and highway 36 going between Boulder and Denver. It's actually a very interesting and resourceful use of the land. There is a sidewalk that goes through the 'park' but there really isn't anything there. The DBC Events crew did a fantastic job putting this one together. There was a video that went on the web to describe the coarse, I like that there was a video but it really did a poor job getting across what the race would be like. People said it would be a dirt crit road race. I can assure you, it was a lot more difficult than people anticipated.

We took over a quarter of the Mall's parking lot for the race. It would start and circle around then drop onto the grass hill. There were a lot of steep off camber grass sections and difficult climbs. There were also two steep run ups to keep people at their limit.

I arrived early to pre-ride the coarse before the racing began. There was nothing overly technical but it was long and with the elevation change it was going to be hard. After a the warm-up I took a brake to get everything else ready for the race day. When the women's races started I followed with another warm-up lap. The condition of the grass was already changing. The grass and chunks of grass were getting ripped out of the ground. Now tires were riding on ripped out loose grass, especially in the places were racers had to turn or brake, these were becoming extremely slippery. A steep descending switch back section on the grass hill was already starting to become technically challenging.

I arrived for our call ups about 10-12 minutes before our race time. The race officials however were late. Our start time came and went. I was starting to get physically cold waiting to go. They finally showed up and I received the first call up due to my points in the Colorado Cross Cup competition. We got all lined up and they quickly got us started. I had my worse start this year. I was cold and I missed my pedal 3-4 times. I went from front row to around 20th. I was behind Brian G., which is actually a good place for a draft. Anyway, I had my work cut out for me if I wanted to salvage a good finish.

I steadily worked my way up the field passing on the climbs and on the run ups. During the first lap I somehow managed to drop my chain twice. Once I got it back on while peddling and the second time I had to stop and put it back on. I never had a clear idea of my placing so I just kept fighting to get to the front. Lap after lap I tried to pick the fastest lines, stay off the brakes and find the rhythm of the coarse. I passed two more guys on the final lap, one within 100 meters of the finish. I ended up 5th. I really wanted to get on that podium but considering the couple of mishaps I had and the terrible start, 5th was an exceptional result.

See more details about the race on 303cycling.com

Not many photos of the early race except the start.

Proof of the technical/slippery descent, this is Todd eating it his first Cat 3 race in the off camber switch back descent of death. (I heard stories of more than one person getting hurt on this tricky section)
All in all I really liked this race. It was well run, well marked and a coarse people will be talking about for a while, good or bad. I hope they do it again next year as it was certainly better than the old Harlow Platte Park Coarse!