Grafton PumpkinCross 2018

• Posted on 26 October 2018
• By Robert Berry
• 0

Anticipation was high for the 2018 edition of PumpkinCross. Of course, we always look forward to PumpkinCross- it’s a great course in a great park run by great people. For me, though, I was most anticipating the weather. Real Cyclocross Weather was in the forecast! Inches of rain during the week would surely create perfect (in my opinion, at least) conditions for racing. During course setup on Friday, it was clear that things were going to come together nicely. The ground was saturated, and once tires hit the course, grass turned to mud. I decided to arrive extra early to spectate, and I’m glad that I did. Real Cyclocross Weather also makes for great cyclocross spectating, after all. People were having fun-lots of smiles and lots of muddy people. As for the racing- the course was 95% the “old” course with a couple tweaks that kept things fresh. The PumpkinCross course is such a good one because it has something for everyone- some technical, some power, some sections where there are a couple different ways to approach things. It’s a course that doesn’t favor one particular type of racer over another- a fair test of cyclocross. Maybe that’s why I like it, because I’m pretty OK at everything but not great at any one thing. I raced the singlespeed race, the last race of the day when the course was at its most chewed-up and wonderful. I was OK enough to win, the first time I’ve won at PumpkinCross. It was a good ending to a fun day. Here’s to more mud in 2019!

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