Boulder Makes Us Poetic: 2019 US Open of Cyclocross
Our 2018 race weekend in Boulder at the US Open of Cyclocross was one for the books. The conditions between Saturday and Sunday contrasted themselves beautifully: a dry Saturday of ripping fast grass track and balmy t-shirt weather, the prelude for Sunday’s sub-freezing snowy mud bath (a dichotomous weather pattern we’ve come to understand is common along the Front Range). Thanks to the help of our friends/sponsors at Stages Cycling, headquartered across the street from the Valmont Bike Park race venue, we were able to prepare for our race days in the utmost comfort and capitalize on our potential, with Clara taking her first elite UCI wins both days and BAO and Sophie notching top-10 finishes. It was a huge weekend for us, with success in a wild yet friendly environment.
So, the 2019 Us Open inspired a high level of enthusiasm and excitement for our team. It became a focal point on our calendar. Nationals aside, this weekend would be the closest geographical UCI weekend for our Oregon-based squad. We made it a point to have a full roster and pull out all of the stops—to spring a full footprint of orange and blue at the venue—plus having our OG S&M badass teammate Sean Babcock along for the racing always makes us better. We were happy to once again spend time with our Colorado-based sponsors at Stages and Feedback Sports, our friends Mitch and Heather and Gav “the Boss” Mechanic, and to have our friend Grant in the pits with us. And to boot, we managed to talk honorary soul-teammate/Minnesota good guy/chosen badass photographer Adam Koble into roadtripping in the van with us and taking our pictures at the bike race. He worked his magic over the weekend and captured our fun, so please enjoy his work here. To compliment his images, we tried our collective hand at droll summary and each wrote a Haiku about the weekend and how it made us feel.
-Bruno