"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

In the history of American Cyclo-cross there have been only a handful of truly majestic and storied events such as the Cyclo-cross festival held on the pristine grounds of Roger Williams Park. Roger Williams Park, in the southern part of the city of Providence, Rhode Island, is an elaborately landscaped 427-acre city park declared, by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, one of the finest urban parks in the U.S. The park is named after the founder of the city of Providence and one of the founders of the state of Rhode Island, Roger Williams. The land for the park was a gift to the people of Providence in 1871, in accordance with the will of Betsy Williams, the great-great-great-granddaughter and last surviving descendant Roger Williams. The land had been the family farm and represented the last of the original 1638 land grant to Roger Williams from Canonicus, chief of the Narragansett tribe.

Greg LeMond says "It never gets easier, you just go faster", and we all learned from the AT&T television commercial that “faster is better”. In my most recent cyclo-cross experienced I've learned that those to hypotheses intersect in an opera called the Masters race. Providence was my first “big” open masters race – fields of over one-hundred 50+ years-young racers competing head-to-head each day. And guess what – I liked it! I had a blast riding with my peers (from an age standpoint anyway). The Masters racers are good riders. I find these races more of a learning event than a race. Don't get me wrong, the competition is fierce. It's just that when the curly part of someone else's handlebars ends up on the inside the curly part of mine, in a curve and nobody panics, and nobody crashes, it just becomes a recitative of the larger opera that is the Masters race. The course was one of the most enjoyable I've ridden. The course lap was punctuated with six fly-overs, just like an opera is punctuated by arias or ariettas. I finished the five laps of the Masters race in fifty-three (53) minutes – that's like an opera having an arietta every 106 seconds. Crazy!

So how did I do? I did great. I failed better than I've failed before. I held onto my reputation as mid-pack Don In an open Master's race – both days.

More photos at: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/2015_divine_providence

William Gibson “Pattern Recognition”

“We have no future because our present is too volatile.

We have only risk management.

The spinning of a given moment's scenarios.”

The Venue: Stage Fort Park, overlooking historic Gloucester Harbor and bound on two sides by Cressey and Half Moon Beaches. Stage Fort Park offers picnic areas with barbecue pits, a beach, a full Visitor Information center, and a playground for the kids. “What is the Gran Prix of Gloucester? Take a dramatic harborfront park at the height of fall foliage season. Set up a twisting grass, dirt and asphalt racecourse with challenging obstacles. Unleash a crowd of world class cyclists to charge through the sharp curves and jump the barriers. Add screaming, cowbell ringing fans incited by a dynamic announcers. What do you have? One of the premier bicycle races in the country, right here in Gloucester.” Borrowed from http://www.gpgloucester.com/spectators.html

Gloucester was founded at Cape Ann by an expedition, called the "Dorchester Company", of men from Dorchester (in the county of Dorset, England) chartered by James I in 1623. It was one of the first English settlements in what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and predates both Salem and Boston. The Dorchester Company of pioneers made landing

at Half Moon Beach and settled nearby, setting up fishing stages in a field in what is now Stage Fort Park. This settlement's existence is proclaimed today by a memorial tablet, affixed to the most prominent geological feature in the park, a large rock, some sixty feet high and two hundred wide. It was an ancient ritual stone used by Native Americans.

This weekend's ritual, the Grand Prix of Gloucester, played out in front of the ancient ritual stone, reminded me of the ritualistic annual crossing of the Mara river by herds of wildebeest migrating from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the greener pastures of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The wildebeest have to run the gauntlet of crocodiles lying in wait. In this particular ritual, herds of cyclocross riders run the Stage Fort Park cyclocross course with the SRAM chicane gauntlet lying in wait with its dusty ruts ready to grab your wheel and pull you down like the crocodiles of the Mara. Even the most seasoned riders, the Masters, fell victim ti the violate nature of the chicane.

As for myself; I was lucky enough, while navigating the course, to spin any given moment's scenarios into a solid 47th percentile finish both days protecting my mid-pack-Don reputation. As for Jen; along with racing, she's wondering what the Dorchester Company might have thought if they knew what was going on in Stage Fort Park the weekend of September 26 and 27, 2015, or what the Indians would have thought of the ritual that was happening in front of their ancient ritual stone.

More photos at: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/gran_prix_of_gloucester_2015