Star-Crossed/M.F.G. #3

 On Saturday, the Cycle U-PopCap Cyclo-cross team had the small luxury of sleeping in on the day of a race.  Star-Crossed starts the race in the afternoon, and various classes/fields race well into the dark hours of night under the lights of the Velodrome at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington.  With warm temperatures and an extremely dry course, dust....I mean dust, like the finest, nastiest, eye clouding, throat choking dust you could imagine.  Black flem, and dirt boogers for a few days to say the least!

  Melanie Lewis, and teammate Kristy Kelsey were forced to take the course under not the best of physical circumstances.  Lewis was in the middle of a cold, and definitely under the weather, and Kelsey was still bruised and banged up from a couple hard "body check" crashes in last weekends race in Arlington including one with a 3" steel pole to the shoulder, which ended her race.  This night would be a night of survival for overall points in the M.F.G. Series.  With a very strong field of Elite women traveling from several states to race in this classic, the Cycle U-PopCap girls were in for a battle.  Both girls had a decent start and Kelsey worked hard to stay with the first chase group, but began to fade a bit, still suffering from last weekends mishaps.  At the same time, Lewis began to find some sort of legs, that eventually her lungs just couldn't support.  Kelsey and Lewis raced much of the race together, helping to salvage what they could with Lewis coming in 12th, and Kelsey right behind in 13th.  Way to tough out a brutal night!



Mel Lewis grinds up the steep power climb on the back side.



Kristy Kelsey soars over the barriers with teammate Lewis in tow.

   The Elite Mens race started off with a "Bang" at 6:30pm, when approximately 30 meters after the start, several riders tangled up and went down hard onto the pavement!  Fortunately, Cycle U-PopCap's Evan Renwick, narrowly avoided the pile up and was off with the rest.  Within a couple of minutes the Master Men were off in the second wave to include Sean Kelsey, and Chad Berg.  Both got off to a good start and found themselves in the top ten after the first couple of turns and into the crowd of spectators.  After the first lap, Kelsey found himself in a chase group of nearly 10 riders, who where keeping the two breakaway guys in check.  Berg continued to fade back, finishing well off of the pace, but enjoying the night and the support of the crowd, and eventually was able to ride the final lap with teammate Evan Renwick.  Kelsey finished in 7th respecfully.



Sean Kelsey doing a little course re-con before the start.

     Next weekend, the Cycle U-PopCap team will be taking on the sandy beach and slopes of Silver Lake in Everett.  That course is nothing short of HARD!  It's either up, down, or sand!  Finally some courses that offer some technical challenges that the team excels at, and looks forward to.  So until then, enjoy the sun while it lasts, we are doing a rain dance!

MFG #3/Star-Crossed Results:

Melanie Lewis  - 12th
Kristy Kelsey   - 13th
Sean Kelsey     - 7th
Chad Berg        - 22nd
Evan Renwick   - 31st