Cross My Heart And Hope To Die Willoughby Cyclocross Spectacular

I’ll give all of you a much more in depth review of the Cross My Heart And Hope To Die Willoughby Cyclocross Spectacular tomorrow, but for now I just wanted to touch base on a few quick points, and show off some pictures. I think the appropriate place to start is to give a big shout out to Greg Jackson (owner) and all the guys at Spin for throwing a really cool event. It was put together on pretty short notice from what I understand, but the turnout was (in my humble opinion) great. It’s about damn time the area had a cool event like this, and I can only imagine what next year could be like. The group at Spin is an awesome bunch of guys, that’s to say I have yet to meet one who isn’t personable and patient. This leads to me opening up myself to be bagged on, but I’d appreciate everyone skipping the bagging on Don. They are also all riders, unlike some guys at the local big box sporting goods stores, and have a better understanding of the culture. OK, enough of me stroking the people at Spin, onto the story.
Let me start by saying I’m glad I will be done having to type out “Cross My Heart And Hope To Die Willoughby Cyclocross Spectacular.” I mean, hell, it’s 55 characters long not counting spaces. The guys at Spin are lucky I like them, risking carpal tunnel and all. It was a great day though. As I got into town I was curious to see what I was going to find, I got to the lot and actually had to try to find an open space. Good sign so far. It was a wondrous site really, something I’m just not used to seeing in the area. The parking lot was littered with cars, the cars littered with rooftop racks and the like.

Where the event took place is fairly near (about 20 minute outside of) the area where the Greater Cleveland Triathlon takes place, but it’s just far enough away that if you mentioned the GCT, 90% of the people living in the area would look at you like you were on drugs. Anyway, it’s fairly common to see people riding since the area has a few cities that have some really nice roads for road riding and little or no traffic, but races in the area are nil save the GCT. People came with cross bikes and mountain bikes alike to ride the race, some with full suspension… God I hope they had lockouts. As it was you could see tires spin while riders were really bearing down on some of the hills. I saw a good deal of running on hills, especially in the novice class, which I believe was due to track conditions. The course had its share of hills, turns and was wet to the touch with dew and rain. The air was cold and damp, drizzle on and off, but it didn’t dampen spirits. “The hill” on the course was crazy…
I even caught some of the guys riding expert dragging bikes up after a few laps, the hill is used in the winter for sledding, its just that big. I’m going to have to look into an exact length for the course, but Id say it was a couple mile loop. I got so caught up in watching, taking pictures, having my camera crap out on me, and having my battery die early due to the 40º temps that I forgot to find out the course length. Likewise I lost track of the results, so I’ll have names for you tomorrow.

For now, you’ll just have to make due with some pictures. Until tomorrow…