Xilinx CX weekend

Saturday's cyclocross race at the Xilinx campus was awesome. It was evident how much thought the promoters had put into the event. The course was one of the best I've seen in CO, the publicity was top-notch, and, consequently, the fields were huge (600+ people). I had an okay race, but I was still feeling the sickness I caught after Gloucester. The 70+ degree temperatures didn't help either. Hopefully by Boulder Cup I'll be back to normal.

pic from 6 degrees

Saturday night we drove up to Berthoud for a dirt jump party at Tammy's (T-Bone's), Spencer's coworker at IMBA. Tammy's backyard is packed with dirtjumps and a halfpipe. There were 30+ dirtjumpers/freestyle BMXers and four road riding Boulderites (us). It was fun to interact with a totally different segment of the bike community though. Some of the bikers (the ones who weren't too many beers in by the time we arrived) were incredibly talented riders.

I skipped the CX race in Fort Collins on Sunday (like everyone else, apparently: there were only 11 or so women in the open race). Instead, Spencer and I went for a road ride out on the plains. The foliage was peaking out there and it was very scenic. We came across this Tim Burton-esque Halloween decoration out on the Boulder Roubaix course:


While heading back toward the mountains on Arapahoe Road, we decided to stop by the Avery Brewing Co. tasting room. Spencer's old friend C.V. was working there and he gave us lots of beer to taste, including an Imperial Octoberfest (wow!). Spencer decided to ride for another couple hours and climbed up to Gold Hill...crazy boy. I went home for lunch!

We ended the weekend with a visit to the pumpkin patch. I made some butternut squash soup for dinner but ran out of time to carve the pumpkins. Luckily I have my handy Crazy Pumpkin iPhone app to help me out!