Cyclocross... Not... Yet

About two weeks ago, I agreed to try a cyclocross race with my brother today. But last night, I found out the bike I was going to use didn't come through so I was on the sideline watching. And to be honest, I'm quite glad. Had the bike come through, I was going to ride a cross bike in a cross race, both firsts on the same day, not smart. This course was nothing but loose dirt, gravel, and asphalt...a recipe for scraped skin if not broken bones. I will be the first to say that triathlons require little to no technical skills on the bike. I don't think you can get away with resting your forearms on your handlebar in cyclocross. The whole mt. biking/cyclocross thing totally eludes me. Yeah, I own a mt. bike but I think I've ridden it less than 25 times since buying it. In fact, I bought the mt. bike solely to race XTERRA Half Moon Bay. That day, I did enough endos to last a lifetime. Since I came out of the water in 10th (pros & amateurs), I was way up starting the bike. I've never had so many people pass me on the bike; in total, I think 200 people passed me. And so many of them were angry because I was going so slow on the single track and they couldn't get around. At one point, these pros told me to stop and get off the single track, ha ha ha. But it wasn't funny at the time, I remember feeling so stressed on the bike that when I got off, I had the worst headache starting the run. I haven't done another XTERRA race since. I recall how deep I had to dig just to survive that bike course, and in a way, I think I'm looking to be challenged like that again. I've got two ironman races on the schedule next year and the last thing I want is to recover from broken bones. I'll take the bike not coming through as a sign to proceed more cautiously with this cyclocross thing. Maybe I should practice on a cross bike a bit before I ride it in a cross race. My brother assures me that there is an upcoming course that won't put my ironman races in jeopardy. Stay tuned.