visitPA.com Race Report

Iron Cross VI

Michaux State Forest

10/12/08

X-Ray Adams

Mike 'KuhnDog' Kuhn, Mike 'The Legend' Hebe, and I, Ray, of the visitPA.com MTB team contested the sixth running of Iron Cross, the longest cyclocross race in the USA. For more info on what cyclocross is, read here. For more details on what Iron Cross is, read this. Or, I can tell you. It is a single lap of road, gravel road, singletrack, and run-ups (hike-a-bike) that goes 62ish miles and takes the winners about 3:50 to complete. It is tough to do well in this race, but not impossible for beginners to complete, which is one reason it is such a great event: it has riders at different levels and from various disciplines of the sport all racing together. My teammate and compadre Kuhndog came up with this race six years ago and it has become a national and international draw, having enticed racers from all over the USA and Europe. This time around, it drew a record attendance of 290 riders.

Anyway, Iron Cross offers the usual individual scoring as all races do. It also offers a team competition, which any group of five could enter. Our team was dreamt up by The Legend (Legendary in a logistical and athletic sense), and consisted of himself, Gunnar and Betsy Shogren, Steevo, and myself. In theory, it was a ringer team.

The race played out just fine for me. I kept pace near the front and held on to top 20ish the whole time. I was as good as fourth for a long while, then dropped back 6th overall, 4th in my age group. Cramps were ready to set in a few times and I definitely have felt better in races, but not too bad for as little riding as I have done lately. Kuhn also had a clean race, coming in around 15th. Hebe was not so lucky, suffering from two flat tires and missing a turn which added four miles to his race.   Our composite teamates Gunnar and Betsy both won their categories of Single Speed and Womens, respectively, and Steevo was right behind me.

The visitPA.com team members had a pretty decent day and our composite team won the race!  Good times. I'd strongly recommend checking out Iron Cross - it is a beautiful, challenging, and memorable course and an all around well organized event!

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• visitPA.com
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