The Cyclocross season began last weekend with the kickoff race in Red-Deer and this weekend was the first double-header weekend of the year. I raced on both Saturday and Sunday… and hopefully will be doing so for the rest of the races for the next six weeks until the provincial championship.
I slapped knobby tyres back on my bike the same day I returned from my excursion to Penticton and have been going hard at it for four solid weeks… so much in fact that I haven’t had runners on in 40 days, and counting. I’ll get back at the running at least on an occasional basis before the end of the cross season but taking a break is just fine with me too. I’ve needed to dedicate focus to the cycling though to prepare properly for cyclocross season. All summer I’ve been working on developing a giant 12 cylinder diesel engine for triathlon time trial riding. It also happened to work alright for powering me through a giant and somewhat ridiculous bike trip across BC. Anyhow, that big diesel engine isn’t going to get me anywhere in cyclocross so I needed to try and add on some substantial top end speed. I also felt like my ability to generate some significant power was definitely there, but I didn’t have the ability to do my max power, recover and do it again and again and again. That results in a limited potential for racing well at cyclocross.
- The Training -
The prescription is somewhat obvious, I need to do intensity in my training at a level that I haven’t done in a long time. That means putting together some race effort work, meaning threshold efforts, and intervals that bring me slightly above threshold and then trying to quickly recover below threshold before punching it back up again and recovering again. They’re hard workouts but fortunately they’re short. I’ve been able to structure the triathlon-club workouts that I’m coaching during this period of the training season to serve two purposes, the adaptation and skills sort of work that’s necessary for people who are just starting out as well as allowing me to sit on that stationary bike and go stupid-hard during those intervals at the same time as other people are just getting used to turning the pedals for an entire hour. I’ve also been doing Wednesday night lessons, taught by a previous provincial champion with a pretty good group of riders from Edmonton, we’ve got a full range of beginner through amazing there which gives me the big benefit of riding on some good cyclist’s wheels and allowing me to learn, learn and learn. I’ve also been racing on Tuesday nights at an informal race series with a twoonie entry fee which serves to provide a good long warmup, about half an hour of serious work at race-effort and then a long cool down ride home from the park. Those three sessions each week plus racing or skills based riding on the weekends has the makings of a HUGE bike focus. It’s fun though and I’m getting better. Hopefully the big diesel engine comes back without too much effort after November.
- Cutting my teeth -
The first Tuesday night race I competed in I was absolutely slaughtered by the competition in the B category. I was dropped by the lead pack off the start and I felt like I couldn’t push the pace anywhere to try and regain ground. It was actually pretty humbling, I had no ability to go when I tried to tell my legs to go. The next weekend though we were off to Red-Deer for my first race in the provincial series and after taking an easy day prior I felt pretty good at the start line. I felt like when I wanted to go I could really go, which was a fantastic feeling. I rode reserved for the first 3 of 6 laps, staying with the leading group of 6 but refused to make any effort at the front. I tried to run as easily as I could through the sand but found that my heartrate was absolutely skyrocketing when I hopped back on the bike. I had lost my chain three times already by the time I tried to make an attack on the fifth lap, but had lost it at convenient points where it didn’t take any time to get it back on. I made an attack with the tailwind on my fifth lap and had put in a decent gap until I dropped the chain on a really bumpy descent and wound up having to dismount, re-chain the bike and start from a standstill at the bottom of a hill. Such is life I said to myself, I obvious hadn’t installed my chain-keeper properly when I switched from 2 rings to a single ring up front. I was now back in fourth place and really had to push hard to try and bring back the leader. The course was too short however, and he picked up the pace on the last half lap to stay away for the win. I was about 5 seconds back in second and third was about equally distant behind me.
- The ‘W’ -
The next Tuesday night race was a sweet one indeed. A relatively flat and winding course with one power climb and a fast descent. I started out slow, anticipating that I’d likely wind up about 10th place again and let about 20 people ahead of me off the start, slotted myself in the train and then started to get to work. I found quite quickly that I was alright at maintaining momentum where some others were not and as a result I was pretty quick on the flats, quicker than all the guys in front of me. I slowly picked them off, one or two at a time, until I was chasing people who were quite clearly faster than me. I was OK with that and just sat on their wheels and tried to keep the effort level high I had no idea who was from my race and who was from the race ahead of me, so was content to just ride. Into the finish I descended the hill near one guy and decided I’d try to race him for what I though was probably fifth place. I nabbed the win with a half wheel length on the line. It turns out that was for first place! Now I’m kicked out of the B category and have to race with the fast guys for the rest of the season, that means tough work!



- Wow this is tough -
Weekend #2 of ‘cross racing started on Saturday morning with the ‘School of Cross’ on a very technical course in my opinion. The mountain bike guys didn’t call it technical, just curvy, and that’s probably true. It wasn’t super technical but it did have some tricky bits and the corners were all very sharp. The result of this was that many many short accelerations were required on each lap and they really sapped my energy. Contrary to the previous week where I felt strong and fast, this week’s race I felt miserable and tired after only the first of five laps. My heartrate was above 180 bpm every time I looked at it and I felt like I was riding extremely slow. I wasn’t going all that slow though, I was actually doing very well. I started relatively well and got into the course in 5th position but the first three were getting away and it took me some time and a few tries to finally get around 4th place and try to reel them in. By that time the had formed a gap that I couldn’t cross and it was too long to pace off of them. This was less than ideal and probably contributed to me feeling like I was doing terribly. Second place got rope in his derailleur and had to pull out and by the last lap I could tell that the new Second place was fading and fourth place was gaining. I really pushed to the finish but wasn’t all that close to catching second but did hold off the charging fourth place guy for a podium position. All in all, a very difficult race and after a collapsing under a tree to catch my breath I think I could even decide that it was fun.



- Fun Fun Fun -
Day two of my first ‘cross double header was a course suited to my strengths. We built it the evening before at Goldbar park including what I’d consider three distinct sections. The first was a rather quick but curvy lap of the lower park, including some tricky sections that required very low speeds, but overall it was a matter of running corners as wide as possible and taking the line that allowed you to conserve the most speed. This fed directly into a climb with a mandatory dismount at the top and double barrier. This fed into a section of off camber riding and turns interspersed with short climbs. It went pretty quick but really required that attention was paid. I felt like I addressed this section well considering the technical bits are a weakness of mine. From there on out the course was a matter of pushing a big gear and cruising with your head down through a long gradual climb and a long and fast descent. At the end of the climb was a triple switchback uphill that was very tight. I insisted on building it like this and unfortunately it’s also likely the bit of the course that cost me a position on the podium but that’s getting ahead of myself. I took the race out slow and in 10th place, not wanting to go to hard right off the bat. After a half lap I started to increase my urgency and by the time I was through the first lap I was pushing hard in 5th place. I moved into third with a double pass just as I was passed by another young guy and fell to fourth. First place was off the front and looked to be pulling away and I think everyone had resigned themselves to the fact that the Juventus rider who had won the first two races and should have been upgraded by this point was likely going to win three in a row. The Pedalhead rider in second had faded badly the day before and I was expecting him to fade back as well so I worked hard to stay with third place and did so for the third lap. By lap four it was obvious that we were reeling in second place and made contact before the last climb up to the barriers. I pulled even with them here but ran slow to let the both go ahead. I didn’t need to lead into the wind on the next section, I wasn’t about to offer my huge draft to these guys. Up to the final zig-zag I decided I was going to run, which I had tested prior and experimented with once during the race. I was convinced that it was not any slower and prevented any chance of errors or overlapping of wheels in the tight section. It was probably the wrong choice however because by the time I was back on my bike I they had a tiny gap of maybe 5m. It was enough that I wasn’t poised to pass where I anticipated needed to pass and couldn’t push quite hard enough to get by them on the long fast downhill. It was about this point that I started to wonder why I was breathing at all, it felt really useless to pump air in and out of my lungs because it didn’t seem to be doing anything anyways. I took huge speed into the last climb and rode the descent on the wheel of third place. Unfortunately when we came to the line I was still a bike length back, the run in to the finish wasn’t long enough to permit a high speed acceleration, it was mostly a matter of maintaining as much speed from the downhill as possible. Fourth place. I fertilized the nearby bushes in true ‘hop ‘n hurl‘ fashion but felt alright within about 10 minutes, I was pretty happy with how I raced though and felt strong and worked hard… perhaps I could have stuck with the leader if I’d not have given away those 10 places off the start but I don’t deal well with really hard starts, so I know what I need to learn.



The day saw some fantastic racing in all categories and John Clarke took the win for Hardcore at our own race in the Expert Category as he now moves up to contend with the big guns with the Elites. I suppose the saving grace with a fourth place is that I am still 3 points shy of an upgrade and get to contend in the Dark Knight as well as the Oval Cross with the slower categories. Hopefully this increases the chances that someone from the Hardcore racing team can with a pig on Saturday night as we’ll be represented in all of the races. A win would be nice, but winning the pig I think is potentially more important. (A scavenger hunt on the course that involves beer for the winner… details to follow if the story turns out to be worth telling)
Youtube coverage of the Expert and Elite Mens’ races will follow pending a free lunch-hour at work to do some video editing. I snapped stills for the women as I was supposed to be marshaling in one area and the field spread out too much to make for exciting footage. Not that the race was unexciting.