Cyclocross is in full swing and Ryan Kelley put the Big D stamp on the start of the season in a big way, with two high placings at Dogfish Cross in Hermann, Missouri. Not one to take the easy route, Kelley decided to make his racing a little more interesting, entering on a single-speed while the rest of the competition relied on a full complement of gearing. Here is his report:

So this year for CX I just planned to do it for a little off-season motivation, and decided to do single speed for the year. I prereged about a month ago, so I had a good starting position. Since it was my first time at SSCX I had no idea what kind of gearing to pick. My acceleration off the line was bad since I was running a 42×17 gearing. The course was flat and had a small technical section. The first day went really bad for me. I spent about 15 minutes practicing mounting and dismounting the Thursday before the race so I lost a ton of time on every remount. On top of it right off the bat someone crashed in front of me and I went right over him and got my bike tangled up with his, and a lap later I went down when I was pushing it too hard in a turn. Finally, after a lot of fighting, I moved up to 4th place and was in a battle for third. We were going into the triple section of low barriers when I was dismounting and I crashed, but was right back up and able to keep fighting for third place. I had trouble getting clipped back in, which caused a little gap to open, I spent the next straight away and caught back up with third place before the stairs. I passed third place and he stuck to my wheel. When we got to the sand pit he came around me and was in front getting out of the pit. Due to my SS gearing I couldn’t accelerate as fast as him so he was able to keep a second or two gap the last 200 yards or so until the finish line. I was happy with 4th considering how bad my remounting was, all of the crashes I was involved in and since I was on a SS.

The second day went much better for me from the start. I still had the same poor acceleration from being on a SS and was about 10th going through the first set of barriers. On the second lap coming up to the barriers somehow my chain dropped on my singlespeed. On top of it my chain got sucked up into my bottom bracket area and I went from 4th place down to 15th. I rode out of my skin the next few laps and got back up to third place. We stayed together for about half a lap and I attacked him on the flat before the giant 60+ stair climb, I could see 2nd place in front of me but there just wasn’t enough of the race left to get back to him so I rode to conserve my podium finish. I ended up third for the race and second overall for the weekend. Was a nice change!

So I decided to go back to gears because I think it really held me back, but it did make the racing a lot of fun since it was just pedal as hard as you can all the time! But I took a lot away from the weekend and will really be practicing my basics before I race again this weekend.

Ryan wasn’t the only Big D rider competing in Hermann. In Saturday’s open race, James Summers placed 23rd in a very competitive field.

Special thanks to St. Louis photographer Dan Singer, who gave permission for use of the above image. See more of his incredible work here: dansingerphotography.com