With cross nationals fading into the rear-view mirror (did you notice that we picked the Junior, U23, Men's and Women's winners correctly? Didja?), now comes the toughest time of the year for the crossresults.com team -- surrounded by food, beer, ice and snow, it's easy to forget that cross ain't done. Just because there's no results on OBRA or BikeReg doesn't mean cross isn't happening -- it just means we might not be able to find it.
So if your local series is being neglected, don't despair! We either don't know about it, or ate so many donuts our fingers are too fat to type the url. Either way you can help us out by lighting up the contact us form with a link to whatever we're missing. Let's finish the season off strong!
Using our revolutionary points system we have come up with the most predictable picks in the history of picking! Johnson, Compton, Summerhill! Go crossresults points, go!
In other predictable site news, the feedback form broke, yet again. Stuff like this is why we are moving servers after the season ends. Who knows how many of your emails we missed. You know what? Screw it, just email us directly. We wanna talk, really we do.
Ok, want to hear a bit more about the predictions? Read on.
One important thing to remember about the predictions is that they're based on crossresults.com points, so your best race gets dropped. No one is hurt more by this than Page, whose 126-point race last weekend was the lowest points scored by an American all year. But we had to throw it out, and behind that, he doesn't have anything nearly as good. Still though, best race by an American happening the week before Nats? I'd bet you this website he's better than 7th.
Additionally, the points aren't weighted toward most recent performance -- it's the average of your last ten. This means everyone is still being affected by races they did in October, and we all know fitness can change much faster than that. Jamey Driscoll is a good example of a guy being held up from a great October, and Todd Wells is a guy being held back by a crappy October. I'd move Wells up and Driscoll down, if I was a betting man.
Lastly, remember that ALL races count toward crossresults points. On Trebon's resume is winning a Cross Crusade SS race AND a Cross Crusade A race in the same day; while we know that that's impressive, the dispassionate points calculator says that a Cross Crusade SS field is nowhere near as strong as a USGP field and rates winning that as a 200+ point score. Even winning a Cross Crusade A race netted Trebon 164 points. It's impossible to tell how easily these victories were for him, so we have to guess by the strength of the rest of the field -- and while 164 points would be a great ride for all but 10 guys in the country, Trebon is one of the 10 actually hurt by that score. So he should actually rate higher than his points would suggest, since he could've just stayed home from the crosscrusade and kept those off his record... if even if they are two wins.
Next time you worry about your points not being a perfect representation of your value as a human being, remember this discussion!
Hey! It's race-predictin' time! With what, 72 hours until the National-freaking-Championships, it's time to post round one of the official crossresults.com race predictions for the event. Unlike regular predictions, these are available to everyone, for free, because we had to do them manually, and I don't feel like trying to hide a google doc behind a login. Our laziness = you win!
Here it is: BAM. Before sending angry emails, remember that all the usual disclaimers apply: points are looked up by racer name, and names are not unique, so if something seems totally wrong it probably is. And if something seems kinda wrong... well that's how we roll, you should be used to it by now.
Oh, I see you're Christmas shopping for a fellow cyclist. Interesting. Have you considered buying them a crossresults.com T-shirt? Be careful, it will give them +20 watts. Maybe you should buy one for yourself, too, just to be safe.
You can also get T-shirts at Baystate Cyclocross (Sterling) this weekend! Look for the blue Fit/International Bikes tent on Sunday, or find a guy (who knows a guy) on Saturday.
Crossresults.com rarely acknowledges having a human form (usually it is just a keyboard churning out questionable PHP), but this is a special exception: "Our race" from last year is BACK and BETTER THAN BEFORE. How is this possible?
If you are looking for a crossresults T-shirt, they're at the HUP United tent at the BRC CX race in Lowell Saturday! Also at the "Blue Fit with 4 roof racks" in Southampton on both Saturday and Sunday!
True story, nothing makes new features pop up like the ole' paypal "Payment Received" email. It's also entirely possible that everyone who bought a shirt will get lower points, in addition to the inordinate amount of attention they're already getting from the opposite sex. And they don't even have the shirt yet.
Quick rundown of what's new:
"New Defeats" stat in your profile: you'll get a skull here every time you defeat someone for the first time EVAR in your last race.
Finish Times Graph: At the bottom of the category breakdown (click the graph icon next in a category header), you can see the distribution of finishers on the lead lap. Great for visualizing how the groups were spaced.
Race Predictor Enhancements: Racers who are not on the current list, but have scored points in the past, get predicted now. Racers who are signed up under a known alias get predicted as well.
So we gave Tim Johnson a free T-shirt and yet he persists in racing in his CXWorld kit. Excuse me? That's it, no more free stuff for anyone! You're all cut off!
If you want to buy a T-shirt like a proper consumer, find us at a race (Southampton/Lowell/Sterling/Warwick/Ice Weasels) or DO IT ONLINE!.
We sold a few shirts before settling on $15/$17. If you bought a shirt for a different price, send us an email and we'll "reconcile."
