Kris Schamp

Folks,

Not sure if all of you are reading the Cross Crusade forum, so I am cross-posting here something I just posted there...

In the last weeks, I have received 3 e-mails from racers who expressed some concern about having next week's course at Kruger's Farm go through the infamous corn maze. Last year, the inclusion of the maze received very mixed reactions. Most people seemed to love it, but others clearly cursed it.

This year, the corn maze is located at a different location than last year. It's right next to the road when you drive up to the farm entrance and when I rode it last week, it was in great shape. I posted some pictures of this year's maze (and other parts of the course) at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/portlandracing/KrugersCrossingCX ClassicCourseRecon

The good news is that the weather is supposed to be dry and windy all through the weekend, so our hope is that the maze will be all ridable and even in better shape than last year, when the race was staged two weeks later in the season and in the wake of an extremely wet November month.

If the maze is ridable, our plan to integrate it to some extend into the course. When we set up the course on Saturday, we will also clear the trails through the maze from blown-over corn stalks and corn leaves, since that's what caused most of the mechanicals last year. And if on Sunday, the course conditions in the maze deteriorate to the point that it's not fun any longer, we will have a backup route (likely around the maze) that we can change the course to.

But hey, that is just our opinion. We love to hear what you guys think. Should we forego the maze altogether? Should we keep it in no matter what (you can always run it or ride a singlespeed, right)? From what I could tell, most people seemed to have an awesome time yesterday, despite the deep mud and some broken dérailleurs. And in the end, having fun is what the race next week is all about!

Cheers,
~Kris

Kris Schamp
Portland Racing