The two most notable names were American Tour de France riders Chris Horner and "Fast" Freddy Rodriguez. These two guys are Elite roadies who have both put in impressive showings in le Tour, so when I tell you they were not factors in the race that should give you some idea about the level of competition yesterday.
For you non-cyclist readers of the blog, cyclocross is a combination of road biking and mountain biking. The bikes look like burly road bikes with skinny tires that have tread on them. The courses are usually a combination of pavement and dirt with mandatory obstacles where riders dismount and carry their bikes over before remounting and continuing on.
Ryan Trebon (pictured below) came into this round having the #1 plate and has won the first two rounds. As the gun went off, he was with the lead group and wasted no time in riding off the front. A pack of riders grouped up to run him down, but it wasn't going to happen today as he was just too strong. He was putting big time into the chase group in the 3-6 laps and then cruised for the last couple.
I was very impressed with the turnout, crowd support and how professional everything was run. This was the big show, and I was glad to have been able to catch it so close to home. The other impressive thing was how fast these guys move. They were at a near all out sprint for an hour straight, on a difficult course that saw a lot of crashes. In fact, I was shooting pics and almost got taken out but a fatigued racer who lost the front wheel and started sliding towards me. Luckily for me, my reflexes were faster than his at that point and I managed to escape unscathed.
Here are a couple more pics from Saturday's event...
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