We drove around the bend from the North Fork to the South Fork and into Southampton for the first day of the Whitmore's Landscaping Super Cross Cup. Of course we made this trip Northward to watch rather than to race and it was immediately obvious that we'd made a good decision. George spotted former German cyclocross champion Malte Urban riding around in warm-ups. It wasn't long before we'd made friends with a group of three Belgians who'd come to the US for the first time. They were members of the Erwin Vervecken Fan Club and had flown across the pond just to watch him race--they were headed back to work on Monday morning. George, being more bold than I actually asked one of the guys for his hat. He happily obliged and after conferring with the other two in Flemish, Jess and I got their hats too! What a gift! Real Euro schwag.


After previewing the course, Jess lined up for her first cyclocross race ever. I've been pushing her to give it a try for a long while and I was pretty excited to see her finally give in and toe the line. This course was anything but easy for Jess. There was one very steep but short sandy hill that was unrideable and barely walkable for us mortals. And there was also a 20% grade hill that was large and quite daunting. Most of the women in this race ended up walking rather than running up the hill by the end.


Even though this course wasn't ideal for her, Jess put forth a great effort and placed fourth out of eight riders, 2:50 back from the winner. With one more lap, I'm confident she would have been on the podium. I'm equally as confident that if she were to keep racing, she would have some decent success. She's strong and more competitive that she gives herself credit for. She's also fairly skilled for her level on technical sections.


But I think this was probably Jess' first and last 'cross race. She truly seems to prefer watching me and being a part of the scene rather than actually racing. She said she's glad she did it since it gives her even more appreciation of what racing is like and what we all put ourselves through. But in the end, she didn't feel like she had the desire to race that have. It's also a good monetary decision considering how much I spend on entry fees. Doubling that would be an enormous cost.