Fog City Cyclocross Series 2014

It's not that hard, right? You just ring a few people, fill in a form, pay a little deposit and it all comes together on the day with everyone pitching in to help. Well, yeah... but when you are starting from almost scratch to build a community around an obscure race format it does get a little harder.

Thankfully, the key interested parties and the OG Il Treno Dolore crew got us kick-started and fired up enough people to re-launch the Fog City Cyclocross Series. This was grassroots racing, scraping up resources and pulling together a skeleton labour force to get the job done.

We pooled our resources, with the Hamilton Mountain Bike Club offering up their facilities and equipment for our first race at their trails in Pukete Mountain Bike Park.  It's always difficult designing courses that will challenge the riders, force a few dismounts, maybe involve a run-up and ensure that everyone is challenged and has fun. Walking the course and setting out the tape doesn't give you much of an idea of what it will be like on your sixth lap with your heart rate peaking well above where it should be.

Proper propaganda

The four race series was moved around between local parks, with the final race being held on the land adjacent to the Avantidrome. We were fortunate to have the support of St Peter's School who allowed us to use their recently finished mountain bike trail, as well as their farm paddocks for our course.

Hoegaarden Hill. Hurl-garden hill may have been more apt

It doesn't matter how fast (or slow) you  are - it hurts just the same

We arranged the race series to run once a month, giving us a little time to breathe between rounds, and try to get to some other races or squeeze in some quality time with the family.

We had excellent support from our sponsors - Good George Brewing, Solo Cycle Wear, Stans No Tubes, Surly, Laroma Espresso, Velo Espresso, and Insight Engine. For each of our Hamilton races, we would strip down the course after racing and get cleaned up before meeting up at the Good George Dining Hall in Frankton for some post-race recovery drinks and food. We always had a good time reliving all the best and worst moments from racing and awarding the fastest people with some Good George brews to slow them down.

Good George Squealers and Growlers as trophies, to slow the fast people down!

Looking like I want to curl up into a ball and d... dream, while Chumz makes a run for the barriers.

I had a fairly good series, overall. As usual, I'd done very little prep work with life and various excuses getting in the way. I have not figured out if it's laziness, or a lack of commitment. I think if I put too much effort in I'll be disappointed if I don't do well. Whereas if I put bugger all effort in and then manage to finish and get around okay, I'm like, "hell, yes, I'm feckin' doing it! Woohoo!!"

And feckin' do it, I did. Missing one race due to illness - still on crew for the day handing out instructions, Red Bulls, prizes and unsolicited bad advice - I placed well-enough to net third place overall.

Ground crew duties.

That concrete sled-run aka "recovery climb".

Women's overall winners:  Janet Stark (2nd), Sarah-Jane Lowire (1st), Melanie Parsons (3rd)

I'm grateful for the support of a few key people; my family, my friends, Velo Espresso and Twin Six. Even a low-key amateur like myself needs help to make mediocrity happen! Wrapping up the 2014 Fog City Cyclocross series with a thrid placing was a really good feeling - knowing that I had ridden my best and that I'd also been part of something much bigger in reviving cyclocross in Hamilton.

Roll on summer!