southern x 2014 race report/review

(1) Weather.  Perfect.  Both for the race on Saturday and the RHR-South team gap ride Sunday morning.  Worth the trip just to warm my skin in the seventy degree sunshine.  Great company.  And those Georgia mountains are just so awesome...the paved roads, the dirt roads, the whole works.  Would really like to spend more time playing in those woods.

Atop Woody Gap Sunday morning.  Wonderful.

(2) Race.  Kind of disappointing.  Ok, but not stellar.  Completely broken by the finish, which I hate, and clearly a sign that I'm a long way from anything resembling form.  (And I know that no one that finished behind me wants to hear that crap, but, you know, it's my blog...)

Managed 5th in the old guy class.  Yay for mid-life?

(3) Event.  Pretty sub-par.  Last year  I sort of gave them a pass, but this year I was really pretty disappointed how sort of tossed together everything seemed.  Always sort of obnoxious for racers to do this sort of calculation, but J.B. and I were asking ourselves  what it was that our $80 bought us.  Not much.  In terms of the event being a _special_ event, of the four ultraCX events I've done, Iron Cross certainly wins.  Three Peaks & Hilly Billy next.  SX is bringing up the rear.  By a lot.  I mean, the course is cool.  All the potential is there.  It just needs a little tender loving care.

(4) T-shirt design/2014 logo.  Really?

Too much baggage with that symbol.  Bury it.  Let it die.

Who in their right mind still thinks it's ok to glorify the stars and bars?  I've lived in the south.  I get it.  I know it's called the "Southern Cross."  I know it figured in the old Georgia state flag.  It's all very clever and punny and whatever.  But, still, I don't get it.  I mean, it's too bad, because aesthetically it really is a cool flag (and t-shirt/logo design).  No doubt.  But context (always!) matters.  And that design is just...no.  (Funny, only after making it so obvious this year did I recognize that the stars and bars made their way into past designs as well...just much more subtly.) So what am I supposed to do now with that t-shirt?  I mean, I can't even give it to a thrift store.  SX, I love you.  Race promoters everywhere, I love you.  But seriously.  Think.

Well, anyway...

I don't mean to end on a sour note.  I loved coming down to the race this year just as I did last (and I'll probably come again in 2015).  The course is awesome, the environment was awesome, I loved seeing old buddies and making a few new ones.

Long live bike racing...  Racing bicycles is awesome.