Hello my name is Jeremy, and I ride bikes.

The little one and I went to the USGP Portland Cup on Sunday to see what real pro cyclocross was like.  I have to say I was pretty impressed with the course and would love just to ride it on my own.  It was fast and looked fun.

We walked around and the little one played in the dirt more than watched, which is a-ok with me.  It was pretty amazing to be out on the course and be about 5 feet from the Pros. To yell and ring your cowbell loudly. Of course it was cold and we needed hot chocolate to warm up, which was provided by one of the truck vendors.  I actually was too full, so I passed on the Frites (awesome fries).

Here are some random pics.

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I took the girls to see the Cross Crusade race at the Hillsboro fair grounds this weekend.  I really wanted to finally try those awesome french fries they have at the races.  The interesting thing about cyclocross here is that it is very spectator friendly.  It is like going to a fair or something.   I highly recommend going for lunch.

Since it really rained hard the night before, the race turned into a mud fest.  My favorite site of the day was watching the women racers covered in mud.  There was one racer that crashed and was covered with mud on only one half of her body, the other half was clean. Pretty funny.

Lilly found a worm while playing in the dirt. I think she liked that more than the race.

Jeremy

PS the french fries were AWESOME!

some random race pictures:

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Lilly and I went to the first race of the Cross Crusade series here in Portland. I was really impressed with how big the event was. I was not expecting it to be as big as it was. Coming from Colorado and seeing their cyclocross series I thought it would be small, but wow I was wrong. It is more like a fair than a race.

We watched the 35+ race and I think there must have been about 100-150 guys racing which makes for some great racing and spectating. Lilly and I go a kick out of seeing guys crash. Imagine crashing in front of crowd on concrete. Awesome.

From 2010-10-03

The other thing that amazed me was the family atmosphere. Lots of kids and they even had babysitting!

French Fries with various sauces? YES PLEASE!

From 2010-10-03

Like a fair, but with more spandex

From 2010-10-03

The pack:

From 2010-10-03

Click for more:

Some video

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Taken From: http://www.blackbirdsf.org/cx/

I love this picture. In a way it resembles moments in life to me.  There are three different groups in this photo.

The first is the CX racer behind the leaders waiting for his turn up the muck. The second is the actual competing leaders of the race already on the muck. And the last group is the spectators.

At different times in life we are in one of these groups.  Sometimes I am just the spectator as another friend, colleague, or family member take the lead roles as I cheer them on.  At other times I am the leader blazing that trail, and still other times I am waiting for the leaders to blaze the trail before I push headlong into it.

Either way it is a cool picture.

Jeremy

Thanks to @bikehugger for finding this link (link)