This was probably the chilliest weekend of the season. Only Giuseppe and Jose showed up and we kept it easy and flat. That was fine. All was going well, including a nice tailwind back to Columbia, when Jose hit a big clump of dried mud in the road and and lost control. He fought to stay up, rolled into the gravel on the side of the road and went down. He landed half on the gravel and half on the softer grass. Still, he hit hard and broke his helmet in three places and layed there for a minute, trying to regain his senses. He came out fairly unscathed. A little blood on the thigh and a stiff neck. The important thing was having the helmet on. He has terrible luck on the Columbia ride. One of the few times he joined us last winter, he broke a spoke. A couple weeks ago, he went down in some thick gravel in a turn. Last week was the broken seat post bolt and now the crash.

Sunday was the first race of the CX season with poor weather. Last week was kid of cold but we added some spitting rain into the mix this week. It wasn't wet enough to be a slop fest but there was a tiny amount of mud and as the B race went on, the course became a little more slippy. The only place that the wet ground really had an effect was a small off-camber downhill turn. This spot claimed a several victims. I almost went down in that spot, too. Only some instinctive counter-steering managed to upright as I skidded sideways down the hill. I was left talking to myself in disbelief after escaping that incident unscathed.

I had my usual below average start but had an okay race from then on and finished 10th.