Emotion

Velonews interview with Katie Compton from Matt Haughey on Vimeo.

Best Not Mess with Gumby

There was a little email chatter over Todd Well's surprise win in the Men's Elite US National Cyclocross Championships yesterday. Linus claims to have predicted Wells for the win (funny, I don't remember OG committing that to the record before) and The Professor was pleased with the strong performances of fellow Oregonians Trebon and Wicks. While these were dramatic contests and results (personally, I feel for Jeremy Powers and am impressed with how he rebounded from his mechanical and dealt with his disappointment), I think the following battle on the sidelines was equally compelling. Or at least entertaining.

Visit cyclingdirt.org for more Videos

Ouch!

Don't try this at home.

NCCX Race 4 Salisbury - NC State Championship

Typically the Salisbury course is a decent one for me. It is fast and with both straightaway sections, winding sections and semi-technical wooded paths. There are two dismounts, one over the barriers and one up a brief stair run-up, neither of which are demanding. Anything that keeps me on the bike longer is better for me.

But on this day it simply did not matter.

I have not written up any race reports this year despite starting (and finishing) all four NCCX races this fall. After feeling pretty good on the road toward the end of the summer I had set some reasonable goals for this series of top ten finishes in the Cat 3. After a somewhat disappointing first race in the top 20 I hit near the mark in Raleigh with 11th. That was a great race and lots of Bull City bikes were on hand. A bigger disappointment followed that week with an 18th place in Boone. A nagging hamstring injury had me dragging myself up the hills on that course. The highlight of these last two races was that Linus is really performing. He is starting at the front and finishing well scoring top 10's in both races. I was not and thus have not been too motivated to describe these moments. Back to Salisbury. Chris, Linus and I hit the road from Durham. It was a beautiful, sunny day and by start time the chill morning air had warmed and everyone was feeling good after catching an extra hour of sleep that night. The hamstring injury lingered but I was trying to put it out of my mind. Linus and I lined up and both started well. Linus was up in the top 3 and I was somewhere near the top 10 on the first lap. This had me even or ahead of some of the consistent top ten finishers. On the second lap I hit the barriers, my leg cramped and I lost a place or two. Just after, on the run up a guy decided that I was going too slow in front of him but instead of side stepping he decided to ram me from behind. This was just enough to drop my chain which I realized upon remounting and spinning hopelessly as I got passed by about 8 guys. These are the moments that make or break your race. Mine got broke. I am pretty calm during mechanicals and got the chain back on. Then it hit me how many spots had been lost and suddenly I felt my hamstring again, realized I actually had not gotten that extra hour of sleep, that my kids were asking where their father was, that the last month of work had been filled with 14 hour days and I struggled for the rest of the race. The good news is that I could see Linus up front every once in awhile and I could tell he was doing well. On the second to last lap I had been riding with a guy that I knew from the races. We have generally been at about the same level. I have typically been able to stay away from him on the fast non-techinical sections but he makes up time on me through the difficult ones with really smooth riding. I put in a late attack on one of the long paved straightaways but could not really get any kind of gap. I had no power in my left leg. He passed me at the entry to the last wooded section and slipped away to finish in the top 15. I held most of my ground and finished 18th but had already decided to skip the next race and rest. Linus had a great race and finished 4th narrowly missing out on the podium. I'll let him tell you that story. Regardless he should get a call up this weekend and hope to hear he makes the podium on what should be a challenging course in Charlotte. Chris raced next to a mid-pack finish in the Pro 1-2 race. All these guys are really fast. To put it in perspective some of the top finishers in the Cat 3's who have recently upgraded have struggled in this race finishing close to the back of the pack. So a mid-pack finish is certainly good and I don't have to tell you all how strong a rider Chris is.
We stuck around long enough to talk to Geoff and Corey and watch the first couple of laps of their race and it's great for Bull City Cycling to have a presence in every category.

Rest for me over the next month is an absolute with hopes for better results come winter. You have to be excited about hosting the second to last race of the series with the Regulators out at Orange County. Hopefully everyone will get a chance to check out what is a great cyclocross series. With that I will leave it to Chris, Linus, Corey and Geoff to keep us up to date on the racing scene.

Walls come tumbling down.....

History lesson: Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall fell...reuniting families, friends and foes. This was perhaps the most momentous event in Europe to that date since the close of World War 2.



Well this last weekend the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships (SSCXWC) were once again held in Portland for one last time. Followers of the event will remember that last year, the start involved blasting through a large bubbly foam wall. Perhaps as the SSCXWC looks for a new venue in upcoming years......they might consider Berlin. If only their wall had been made of foam, perhaps the Germans would have all been much happier years ago.....




No reports yet from the Professor or Linus O-G about their results from SSCXWC this year....most likely they are still passed out in a Portland gutter in foam wearing a modified Bull City Cycling bikini or something similar...

Academic Interest

Check out the trailer for Brian Vernor's new documentary, "The Cyclocross Meeting" which follows Barry Wicks and Adam McGrath as the compete in Japan. With cyclocross + Japan, this film's target demographic is clearly The Professor.

NB: Watching Barry Wick's extra-tall profile among the Japanese racers, I'd guess that I'm something like average height for a bike racer in Japan which is kinda cool.

Cameo

Perhaps yesterday's post was premature. BCC HQ received this photo today. Seems Hollywood is making a cameo appearance with his cyclocross bike before this weekend's competition.

Hollywood Files

Sure, The Professor, OG, and Jay actually have to ride their CX bikes. But just as Alberto Contador has outsourced his signature "fingerbang" Hollywood informs me that his cyclocross bike is turning laps under someone named David Hasselhoff, I mean "Kitt" this season. Hollywood's bike has already placed 2nd at a local Colorado race and he's predicting that he'll move to the top step of the podium at this weekend's Boulder Cup race. Brian says, bring it on. His bike is ready.

Warrior Professor-Princess

I ran into the Professor yesterday while he was on his way to an evening symposium of libations and dialectics. He mentioned that he plans to race the new singlespeed CX class this weekend in Cary and Raleigh because all competitors can add on a second race for only 5 dollars. Then me chastised me for making excuses for not racing, telling me that if he plans on racing four times next weekend surely I could manage to get out there at least once. It goes without saying that my shame is monumental, but then I see the bike honoring his Japanese heritage the Professor will be racing in said singlespeed class this weekend and my shame is doubled over. Slay on Warrior Professor-Princess!

Gravel Shortage

The closure of Duke Forest during the weekdays this fall has many of us suffering from a vitamin G deficit. Apparently we're not alone.

USGP Cyclocross

The Professor and I were discussing this race during our ride the other night. Specifically, how awesome and difficult this course looks and what an amazing performance Jonathan Page puts in. He really attacks this course and his competitors. Film courtesy of Cyclingdirt.org, a site that deserves high praise for it's incredible coverage of mountain bike and cyclocross events.

Cycling Videos on CyclingDirt

Derny

It's definitely on my wish list for the team. Will Hollywood's personal sponsor step up and let us prototype the 2010 model?

Hollywood-Rock Racing: Questions Answered

We've had a lot of inquiries since this image from last weekend's US Cyclocross Nationals in Kansas City appeared on the internet. Lots of folks wrote in to ask if Hollywood was previewing the now budget-challenged Rock Racing's 2009 team kit. If so, it was a marketing coup.

Double-O CX: A Quantum of Sandpit

Just as James Bond has a license to kill, Coreys Haim and Feldman have a license to drive, and Billy Ocean has a license to chill (revoked in 1989), BCC agents Linus O-.G. and Chris O. have a license to race bicycles.

To honor these licenses, we headed down to Southern Pines on a super secret cyclocross mission. A number of other racers in the NC series apparently chose not to accept this mission (in favor of the Blacksburg, VA race, the New Jersey UCI race, or sitting on their butts back at BCC World Headquarters). Nevertheless, there the race went on with plenty of fast dudes and plenty of challenges on the course. Southern Pines is in NC's sandhills region which, while not very hilly, is very sandy. The promoters always put together a nice race on the campus of Sandhills Community College (who are kind enough to let us use the restrooms in the student center, rather than accursed porta-johns), winding across a flat grass field and parking lot. This is all well and good, but the real trouble comes when we enter the woods; a descent with quick switchbacks through deep sand, followed by a long, sandy run-up.

Call me crazy, but there isn't enough running in bike racing. Watch the Euros, or races in the US where it rains a lot. The conditions get nasty and riders are forced to run. Here in NC, we are blessed/cursed with ild wintertime weather, meaning that while we don't freeze our fingers and toes off, we don't get ridicuolus mud. I think that this should encourage race course designers to find some wacky feature that forces riders to run with their bikes for a while, but this typically only happens up the dam in Cary and up the sandhill in So-Pines.

But this is all just theory and philosophical musing of what makes a great cyclocross course. In reality, these run-ups suck. They hurt like hell. The are motivational killers because you not only feel like you're moving so slowly, but when you finally get back on the bike, you try to pedal and you have zero power. Ooof.

Linus always gets great starts, quickly settling into fourth position. This appeared to be a big help, because there were few places to pass on the serpentine infield and there were huge bottlenecks once the pack hit the sand. Avoiding these pitfalls, Linus settled nicely into his rhythm, rode cleanly and smoothly, and held off a late charge from some dude to finish 11th. He seemed a little bummed he was just out of the top 10, but a fine result. He rewarded himself on the drive home by buying a beef stick at a gas station. I thought it looked nasty, but he seemed satisfied.

My race was a strange one. Only 7 riders, all of whom had beaten me in previous races. However, I had beaten at least one of them when they were sick or had mechanicals. And while I would not wish ill upon one of my competitors, racing is an opportunistic endavor--when someone is having a bad day, someone else gets to step up. If I could finish, I was assured one of the highest-placed finishes of my CX-1-2 career, not to mention some cashmoney. However, could I avoid a last place finish? I got off to what's becoming my trademark slow start (initiated in racing singlespeed against the mostly geared collegiate men), as to avoid getting in the way of dudes that were clearly faster than me. My body seems to respond better when I start conservatively, holding wheels and not trying to jump past people in the first few minutes. This worked out pretty well as one, then two dudes kinda popped. I followed the wheel of Scott, an Inland rider, for a couple of laps until he gapped me and was on his merry way. I was feeling pretty okay and had a fairly sizable lead ahead of the 6th place guy, trying to ride quickly without taking any silly risks. The final lap presented a late surge from Aaron (the aforementioned 6th place guy), so I had to dig a bit deeper to fend him off. So while there is a big asterisk after this fifth place (my highest finish in a CX-1-2 race ever), it is still one of my most proud third-to-last place finishes.

Cyclocross in the Times

Jump the barrier? Jump the shark? Does it matter? Cyclocross.

daily math

Plug this one into your T.I.-81:

the end of daylight savings
+
rain
=
indoor trainer time

and ample empirical evidence has proven that,

indoor trainer time
=
boring

however, given that in Standardized Boredom Units (SBU),

free european cyclocross videos<<

we can conclude that

indoor trainer time * free european cyclocross video downloads
=
pretty fun

Let's call this one Spear's Theorem (Nathan, not Britney--see the link). Yes, in fact this guy has uploaded a bunch of broadcasts from Belgian tv. Once you register, you can watch them for free. Has he done this with expressed written consent of major league cyclocross? Who knows. Does it help to alleviate seasonal training disorder? heck yeah.

p. s.
vote.

NCCX #3: Boone

Whilst the majority of the team was doing an awesome job at the Second Empire 5k, BCC's special teams cyclocross unit headed west to Boone.

Barriers, beer gardens, and Bull City Cycling. This is what cyclocross is all about. The Boone guys put on a great race with a challenging course at a cool venue, two beer gardens, and a dj who was kicking tunes ranging from Stevie Wonder to Sonic Youth to Madonna to Gang of Four. Linus woke up with nasty congestion and a cough and prepared for the race with coffee, Bojangle's biscuits, and his special super secret PowerSauce. I don't want to give away his secret, but I'll just say that the label said it may result in "dizziness" and "awesomeness". Given the fact that his ailment inhibited breathing and given the fact that breathing is an important part of cycling as well as living, Linus put in a strong effort. Recent rain added a little mud to the course and damp grass combined with a strong headwind really sucked the power out of us on long straightaways. 

Linus and I drove up with Durham's own mtb bandit, Jay, the fasted guy on 26" wheels. 

Jay once again proved that expensive cyclocross bikes are not necessary for a top-ten finish. 

I, on the other hand, wanted to use my needlessly expensive, but much beloved cyclocross bike to redeem my poor result from last Sunday. As you may recall, I rolled a tire on a steep descent, so I bought some new glue (Vittoria mastic) and glued the hell out of my tires and crossed my fingers. The finger-crossing was put to the test, given a really tricky off-camber, precariously-rooted section of the Boone course. The tires held as I made up for my slow start by picking-off riders throughout the hour. 

Initial results said I was in 10th, but looking at the website today, it has me in 11th. I'm not sure what that's all about (I'm not sure what the truth is), but I do apologize to the real 10th place person--I took your prize money. Payout went 12 deep, and since 10th place only got $15, my guess is that I owe someone $5. Or a giant beer. 

CX: Cary, NC

After feeling pretty good in Raleigh, Linus and I headed down to Cary for Sunday's races. The Cary course always features a tough run-up along the dam and usually some wicked downhill S-turn they call the super-D. Conditions were sunny, cool, and drier than Saturday, but there was still enough moisture to allow dirt and sand to pack-down a bit. Linus raced first and fought his way through another large Men's 4 field. Soon after the start, racers were strung out all over the long course, so it was tough to tell exactly who was in what position. Linus can probably give you a more thorough description but he rode another smart race, avoiding mishaps in the nastier sections to finish 17th. I didn't envy Linus at all--since the Cat-4 race is only 30 minutes, it requires a ridiculously high intensity and leaves no room for mistakes.

Big props to our pal Jay, who was also out kickin' in in the 4s on his vintage Bontrager mountain bike. He finished 22nd out of 60 racers, beating lots of dudes on shiny new cyclocross rigs and proving it's all about the engine.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a photographer out with us so there is no visual evidence. Jonah received many compliments for his documentation of the Saturday race, but just to remind him not to quit his day job, he did take a couple of lousy photos, including the back flank of Linus (which may or may not have been intentional) and this one:

That being said, this photo is actually a good representation of my race. I had a pretty solid start and felt even better than the previous day. However, about half way through the race, I overshot the apex of the final super-d turn and rolled my tire. My crash provided a nice show for the spectators who gather at this section waiting for just such misfortune. Yes, you are all most welcome. I think I loosened-up the glue with some hard cornering on some of the very tight turns and was one of several victims of the rolled tubular. After picking myself back up, I started running toward the pit, which turned out to be a long, long way away. I still had a little air in the tire, so I'd slowly ride some flat, straght sections of the course, but ended up doing a lot of running as everyone else passed me. After finally making it back to the pit for a wheel change, I was sitting pretty in last place, so I decided to keep on riding and finish. I'd rather pull a DFL than a DNF any day, and all things considered, I feel pretty lucky that I didn't injure myself or anyone else on my stupid crash. The lead trio caught me with 2-to-go, giving me a one-lap discount. Lucky me. Yeah, so that sucked, but I'm getting fired-up for the upcoming races.

Cyclocross im Deutscheland

Radsportclub Kleinmachnow e.V.
Karl-Marx-Strasse 44 a, 14532 Kleinmachnow
Boris Eichler – Vereinsvorsitzender

Pressemitteilung KOCMO CROSS CUP 2008

Sehr geehrte Sportsfreunde, 14.10.2008

seit heute steht fest, dass zwei hochkarätige Radsportstars im November beim schon traditionellen Kleinmachnower Cross-Rennen am Start sind:

Hanka Kupfernagel und Philipp Walsleben starten
beim KOCMO Cross Cup
am 15.11.2008 in Kleinmachnow.

Hanka Kupfernagel ist Deutschlands erfolgreichste Cross-Fahrerin und sie gehört mit vier Weltmeistertiteln zur absoluten Weltspitze dieser Disziplin. In Kleinmachnow übernimmt sie außerdem die Schirmherrschaft für ein Nachwuchsrennen.

Philipp Walsleben ist momentan Deutschlands größte Cross-Hoffnung. Der Kleinmachnower, der mittlerweile in Belgien wohnt und trainiert, wird in dieser Saison nicht mehr oft in Deutschland starten. Walsleben gilt mit seinen 20 Jahren bereits als bester deutscher Cross-Fahrer. Das haben seine beiden Siege in Hamburg und Berlin bewiesen. In seinem belgischen Team „Palmans Cras“ wird er intern bereits auf Platz zwei hinter Niels Albers geführt. Querfeldeinradsport ist in Belgien die populärste Sportart der zweiten Jahreshälfte. Philipp Walsleben brennt darauf auf seiner „Heimstrecke“ im Eliterennen zu brillieren. Das erste Rennen in den Kiebitzbergen wird er um 10.00 Uhr start. Der Start zum Eliterennen wird um 15.00 Uhr fallen.

Schon jetzt haben über 300 Starter für das traditionelle Kleinmachnower Rennen gemeldet. Der KOCMO Cross Cup ist Teil des Deutschland Cups. Das ist eine bundesweite Querfeldein-Rennserie, die als Gesamtwertung ähnlich dem Ski-Weltcup funktioniert. Die Veranstalter hoffen wieder auf mehrere Tausend Besucher in den Kleinmachnower Kiebitzbergen.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen