Bike World News

Craig Randall from Verde PR & Consulting gave us this report and these pictures from the Boulder Cup race in Boulder Colorado on Sunday.

The 11th hour course change for the Boulder Cup (originally scheduled for the Cross Vegas-y terrain of Harlow Platts park in South Boulder but traded for the sandy beached Boulder Reservoir) did little to upset the Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com armada and their domination of the first half of the ‘cross season. The Boulder Cup marked the second round of the fourth North American Cyclocross Trophy weekend.

The 1.75-mile course offered fairly typical cyclocross du jour: stretches of tarmac, dirt, grass, and an uphill section of TRP-yellow barriers. Unique to the reservoir though was a slippery “dock” barrier and the addition of a course change for the pro men that resembled a roundabout-style, largely unrideable sand trap.

During his preride, Jeremy Powers could be heard cursing this extra bit of course that the 11 categories of early-day racers were not required to ride. Grumbling aside, Powers would later show his technical acumen by blasting through this section in first place for much of the 60-minute race.

The last minute course change was a result of “Colorado being Colorado.” As residents of the state routinely attest, Colorado weather is more bipolar than Carrot Top on a meth bender. Temps in the 50s during the day Tuesday later plummeted and that night began a nearly 48-hour-straight snowstorm that, by Thursday, dropped anywhere from 20-23’’ of precipitation depending on your Boulder point of reference.

DBC Events (promoter) signed a pre-race agreement with the city instituting a caveat that said if conditions (and riding bikes) across the terrain proved detrimental to the park, the race venue would be changed (resulting in today’s throwdown at the ‘Res). Temperatures rebounded today and held in the mid-50s making quick work of the snow and even the mud for the most part.

Toeing the line for this UCI-C1 race was a who’s who of American cross, with a startling number of row-one racers sporting the ubiquitous yellow Mavic shoes (see photo). Powers, Davide Fratini, Tim Johnson, Geoff Kabush, Danny Summerhill, Jamey Driscoll, Carl Decker, and Jesse Anthony took their rightful places after a boisterous call-up.

With the gunshot came the sprint off the line and a pecking order was quickly established. Crowd favorite Aaron “Boups” Bouplon of the local Rocky-Mounts-IZZE cycling team came unhitched in the initial sprint, tangling bars with three or four other racers in a crit-style crash of scraping bikes and bodies on the pavement (he would later recover and start picking off riders in his diesel style).

Powers immediately came to the front establishing a gap of ten seconds over Johnson. The sand sections (particularly a section of uphill from a 90-degree approach), tested bike- handling abilities and proved to be a race-equalizer. Adam Craig rode the section on each lap, often barely avoiding a tangle with the course tape as the sand spit him from a clean line. Riders who opted for the porting approach ran next to him at nearly an even clip.

The plastic dock, a 100’ entry to the water from shore, was both a nervous and exciting barrier for the riders. Speckled with sand, several riders slipped, slided, and leapt onto it while others, notably Powers and Craig, bunnyhopped on to it and then off. With five laps to go, it was here that Powers lost the advantage to Johnson and that he wouldn’t reclaim. The toll of the pace clearly affected his hop, with a concentration lapse forcing Powers to overcorrect over the top while Johnson jumped on and over, remounted and pedaled away from Powers.

Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com played up team tactics, never letting eventual fourth and fifth place finishers Kabush and Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski get between their clean-sweep of champagne-spraying positions. Even a late race nosedive wasn’t enough to unseat Driscoll from third.

As cowbell sounded and the announcers all but called a victory for Johnson, his gap over second-placed Powers held steady at 21 seconds. In a show of force, Johnson’s gap over the field chasers was three-to-four minutes.

A testament to Boulder’s national caliber locals and its everyman-racers, several BoCo-based riders finished just outside the top-10. Barring another freak early-season storm, the Boulder Cup will return to Harlow Platts park next year for its fifth annual edition.

Brief results:

Place Name TEAM BIB Time

1 JOHNSON, Timothy Cannondale/CycloCros 3 1:01:40

2 POWERS, Jeremy Cannondale/CycloCros 2 1:02:15

3 DRISCOLL, James BikeReg.com / Cannon 1 1:02:33

4 KABUSH, Geoff Maxxis/Rocky Mountai 5 1:02:51

5 Horgan Kobelski, Jeremy Subaru/Gary Fisher 67 1:03:11

6 DECKER, Carl Giant MTB Team 48 1:03:24

7 JONES, Christopher Champion System 4 1:03:26

8 SUMMERHILL, Danny VMG/Felt 15 1:03:52

9 FRATTINI, Davide Team Fuji 6 1:04:12

10 CRAIG, Adam Giant MTB Team 16 1:04:24

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