Busy weekend of ‘cross concludes with Crusade finale

Nov 13, 2009 by editor

Another soggy Pacific Northwest fall weekend means another full menu of cyclocross around Oregon. The fun begins Saturday with the first race of the Crossaflixion Cup in Bend. The two-race series, which takes place at the Seventh Mountain Resort, concludes two weeks later on Nov. 28. The day starts at 9 a.m. and winds up with the men’s a race at 1:30 p.m.

Jacksonville will be hosting the fourth installment of Southern Oregon’s five-race Outlaw Cyclocross Series Saturday as well. That series winds up next Saturday, Nov. 21, at Paradise Ranch outside of Jacksonville.

Saturday’s races will offer a perfect build up to the big Cross Crusade finale at Barton Park near Estacada. The eight-race granddaddy of Oregon ‘cross races concludes Sunday with most of the series overall battles still very much in play. (The riders’ overall totals will be based on the best six finishes of the eight races. Points are awarded 18 deep in each race, distributed as follows from first to 18th: 26,20,16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1).

The men’s and women’s A races are coming right down to the wire.

Last year’s women’s A winner Wendy Williams (Hudz-Subaru) leads this year’s series on the strength of her three consecutive wins in the first three weeks. She sits 13 points ahead of Veloforma’s Alice Pennington, who won the Oct. 31 race in Astoria and hasn’t finished out of the top five, including three second-place podiums. Emily Van Meter, winner of last week’s PIR race and the Oct. 25 Crusade, sits in third 34 points behind the leader. Sunnyside Cycles’ Serena Bishop and Team S&M’s Rhonda Mazza finish out the top five.

The men’s A race is the tightest overall battle, with Portland Bicycle Studio’s Molly Cameron sitting just one point ahead of Team S&M’s Sean Babcock.

Cameron has won two Crusade races already and has finished top five in two others. Babcock won the second race in the series and is coming off a fourth place finish ahead of Cameron last week. Kona-FSA’s Barry Wicks, who won both races in Astoria Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, sits in third place just 20 points behind Cameron. However, the big USGP race this weekend in New Jersey make it unlikely that Wicks or teammate Ryan Trebon, who won the only series races he showed up for at Alpenrose and PIR but sits just ninth overall, will be at the Cross Crusade finale in Barton Park. Vanilla Workshop’s Shannon Skerritt and Kevin Hulick round out the top five overall.

It seems that just about everywhere you go in Oregon this weekend, there’s a cyclocross race within spittin’ distance. So get out there!

The complete OBRA Cross Crusade overall results are HERE.