queen elizabeth park

baby walter cross 2023 - day 2

Race Info #

I had hoped to do more racing this year, but it turned out that four was what I could handle with my work and other life commitments. So the second day of Baby Walter Cross was my season closer.

In the Leaves Defending 12th - photo by Stewart “The Legend” Hutchings1

The course this year went the opposite direction of 2022 which I think I preferred. The climbing of the stupid hill was still tough, but the descents weren’t terrifying and we got to skip the runup in favour of a singletrack descent (with roots that were highlighted but you needed to dodge).

baby walter cross 2023 - day 1

Race Info #

Baby Walter Cross is a two-day race put on by the Alberta Cyclocross Collective, which isn’t a club exactly, just all the cx lovers in Edmonton. The park has a really big hill, which makes for a lot of climbing.

Apparently on the Saturday race (which I didn’t attend) there were some big crashes by people trying to bunny-hop the obstacles and failing badly. One of them happened when the rider came unclipped between barriers, but I don’t think there were too huge of injuries.

zombie baby walter cross 2022

I was the last competitor across the line in the Novice class of the Zombie Baby Walter Cross race. But a bunch of people had been lapped or did not finish, so I wasn’t actually in last place. It’s funny how that feels.

It’s not so funny how it feels to wipe out trying to turn while sliding down a grassy hill. Which I did. But I kept going, gritting my teeth while kids in my race were bunny-hopping the barriers.