Cyclocross prep work.

Ok kids, you missed a good one this weekend.  Saturday morning the Sagebrush cyclocross series kicked off with a clinic run by some of the regions top riders, followed up with building a new course for this coming Saturday's season kickoff race.  I took a bunch of pics for your pleasure.  However, I'm not going to reveal all the race winning knowledge they imparted upon us!

The group working on dismounts and remounts above the previous lesson on how to ride slippery side hills.

Once you have the running dismount....let's add barriers and split second timing to the mix!!

Nick (yellow helmet) makes it look smooth and easy!

Barriers aren't enough....now it's a dismount, shoulder the bike, run the stairs drill.

If all these drills weren't enough for you (and it was hot)....you were cordially invited to meet up in the parking lot after a lunch break to go dig, rake, scrape, pick, and manually remove rocks, dirt, and goat heads for next weeks course!  Being a glutton for punishment (and having no real plans) I foolishly agreed!

Having raked the previous 1/4 mile of course....picks were employed to dig out the lead in to the first run up.

Yeah, this isn't a photo shopped perspective....the picked out trail leads into a "run up" (as in no one can ride this incline) that goes pretty much straight up the rockiest hill you can find!

A look back down for perspective.

The red outline shows the rough shape of about 1/2 the course.  Every inch had to be racked, cleaned of goat heads, cleared of brush (the dotted line) and otherwise made rideable!

Three hours later the course had been beaten into shape.  It was goat head tested by several dogs (dog paws are magnets for goat heads)!  The 10-12 dusty, tired workers gave it an official one finger salute and officially called it a day by cracking open a beer....Ok, so that's what I did.

Any way you look at it, it's a completely awesome new course that is going to beat the tar out of even the best riders out there!  So join us next week as a rider or spectator to see all the spectacular misery this course will inflict!

Here's a complete overview of the basic course.