Cross in June???

Oh yer! Thats how we roll down south! Given that it’s winter in Australia and the Melbourne weather has just recently been wet, cold and miserable, the conditions were perfect for a cross race. For this leg, the Brunswick velodrome (and its surrounding parkland) was turned into an ad-hoc cross course.

It was my first ever cross race, so I didn’t really know what to expect, but it’s cool, there was something for every man and his dog:

OOh that was poor but I had to get the little guy some exposure given that it was freezing and he was brilliantly obedient (not to mention interested in the race). In any case, the day started with an ‘Open’ race which attracted a wide variety of bikes. The star here was no. 4 though, riding a BMX:

And then there was this dude, riding fixed, brakeless, and with the most ridiculously tight tire clearance I have ever seen in my life (apparently he spent the previous night shaving the tread off of his knobby tyres), and he still managed to come second if I remember correctly:

The open was great fun, but then the CX began:

The race continued on and about half way through, the field started thinning out somewhat. There were a couple of DNF’s due to punctures (I think one of em was the dude with the dog pictured above) and a few small spills. Honourable mention goes to these two guys for pretty much racing each other a few laps in, and for the (poorly photographed) Boonen-esque victory pose during an impromptu sprint:

Which, to quote the MC, ended in tears (but not mine) only a few meters later when using muddy cross tyres on a velodrome proved to be more difficult than riding with no hands:

All in all, a great day of racing with (thankfully for the guys and girls racing) no major injuries. Bring on Round 2!