After s short break of Cyclocross in Texas I flew to Louisville, KY yesterday for the UCI Master Worlds which are held a few days before Elite Worlds this weekend here in the town of Bourbon, Kentucky Derby, Muhammad Ali, and Cardinals Basketball (well, not sure about the last one...).
Seems like the last week of January is always a bad weather deal in that part of the country! Last year we first had mud and then on race day 18F and frozen ground/ruts for my 30-34 race. Looks like it will be VERY similar this year. I got in and went for a ride over to the course and checked it out. Pretty flat and lots of grass (which is turning to slushy, mud stuff as I type) so less of a "true" CX course like the USGP Bandman Park Course which is used for Elite Worlds. There are some nice bike trails here in Louisville and traffic ain't to bad riding to/from the venue.
I got up at 7:30 today to check out the course for our race at 11:30. Well, actually the tornado sirens woke us up at 4am but even though there was a tornado warning most people slept through it/didn't care. I remember hearing the sirens a few times when I lived in Wichita Falls aka "Tornado Alley" so I wasn't too surprised. The rain did some damage to the course, though and it's getting heavier/slower as the day goes on. Start times have been pushed 2hrs up and our "Seeding Heat" to determine start/staging order for Friday's Final is at 2pm. It's more or less a "warm-up" and just 3 laps (18-20min) long.
Forecast for Thursday is pretty cold right now. Freezing tonight and 30's tomorrow with chance of snow. An Teens on Thursday night. If this holds up Friday's race course will be a similar ice-rink like last year.
Either way, this next few days will be interesting. Will update more tomorrow.
Cheers from Louisville,
Stefan
Note: Course pictures are courtesy of fellow Texan & teammate Paul Gerhardt, who was lucky to race in dry 68F yesterday afternoon.
Seems like the last week of January is always a bad weather deal in that part of the country! Last year we first had mud and then on race day 18F and frozen ground/ruts for my 30-34 race. Looks like it will be VERY similar this year. I got in and went for a ride over to the course and checked it out. Pretty flat and lots of grass (which is turning to slushy, mud stuff as I type) so less of a "true" CX course like the USGP Bandman Park Course which is used for Elite Worlds. There are some nice bike trails here in Louisville and traffic ain't to bad riding to/from the venue.
I got up at 7:30 today to check out the course for our race at 11:30. Well, actually the tornado sirens woke us up at 4am but even though there was a tornado warning most people slept through it/didn't care. I remember hearing the sirens a few times when I lived in Wichita Falls aka "Tornado Alley" so I wasn't too surprised. The rain did some damage to the course, though and it's getting heavier/slower as the day goes on. Start times have been pushed 2hrs up and our "Seeding Heat" to determine start/staging order for Friday's Final is at 2pm. It's more or less a "warm-up" and just 3 laps (18-20min) long.
Forecast for Thursday is pretty cold right now. Freezing tonight and 30's tomorrow with chance of snow. An Teens on Thursday night. If this holds up Friday's race course will be a similar ice-rink like last year.
Either way, this next few days will be interesting. Will update more tomorrow.
Cheers from Louisville,
Stefan
Note: Course pictures are courtesy of fellow Texan & teammate Paul Gerhardt, who was lucky to race in dry 68F yesterday afternoon.
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| only a few airports do that |
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| bike trail close to I-64 in Louisville |
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| "Good morning. Yes, we got a system moving in." |
