Over the last year or so I’ve started to become a big fan of cyclocross. I’ve always been a casual cycling fan, I watch the tour every year and now that NBC Sports shows the Tour of California and the USA Pro Challenge I’ve found myself glued to the TV during those weeks too. My recent enjoyment of cyclocross though comes from somehow randomly stumbling upon Behind the Barriers one day. I can’t even remember what I was doing, looking for Olympic mountain biking videos last summer maybe? I don’t know. Anyway, I’ve always thought it would be interesting to look into since it’s hugely popular in New England, a few friends of mine have started racing it, and I’m from the same hometown as multi-time US National Champion Tim Johnson.
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| Powering out of a corner |
I’ve always been aware of it, but finding that random episode of Behind the Barriers led me to start following it weekly, thanks to the awesome coverage of the sport by BTB and now BTBtv. After I got my mountain bike, I remembered seeing a story about how a lot of beginners will ride mountain bikes in cross races to get started. Since I apparently have this thing where I have to try every sport that has cross in it…cross country, check…cross country skiing, check…skier cross, check…that board game cross fire, check. That really only leaves motocross and cyclocross on my list of cross sports to try. Once the CX (yeah I’m shortening it now cause I’m a CX racer) season started up I figured I would see if Georgia had a series or at least a handful of races.
As it turns out, Georgia has one of the bigger CX series in the southeast…score! Unfortunately, the cross season falls during my busiest time of the year during the football season and nearly all the races are on Sundays. That doesn’t work when I spend my whole Sunday at the Georgia Dome or some other NFL stadium. It also doesn’t help that it falls during my XTERRA trail racing season. Those things made it really tough to find a weekend that I could actually race. Originally, I had planned on racing during our bye week, but I ran an 8 mile trail race on Saturday and didn’t want to ride my first CX race on thrashed legs.
I scanned the Georgia CX calendar again and low and behold, Dingo Cross, a CX race on a Saturday a short ride up the highway from my apartment. Jackpot! I was even able to get Amanda to tag along, it was at Jeep dealership so she could window shop and I promised a trip to the outlets after.
The night before the race I was super nervous. The only bike race I’ve ever done was the bike leg of the one and only triathlon I’ve ever done and it’s been my experience when mountain biking that I’m not that good at it. I’ve got a good aerobic base, but the whole bike handling and power and jumping over barriers deal…I was concerned to say the least. I ended up spending an hour at the softball field across from my office practicing my dismounts, barriers, and remounts on a make shift course complete with trash can barriers. When I got home that night I laid out my kit, a new 2013 Rise Up Falcons jersey, ¾ undershirt, and bib shorts and my new helmet from Rudy Project that I won from XTERRA. At worst I was going to look like I knew what I was doing.
Amanda and I drove up to Baldwin, Georgia, a short trip up 985 and pulled into the Hayes Chrysler, Jeep, Chevrolet dealer about an hour and half before the CX5 beginners race started. I made my way to the registration table, got my number then headed back to the car to start getting everything squared away for the race. I got my Specialized Hardrock Disc 29er ready to go and set out for two laps on the course to see what I was in for.
The race started on a paved section behind the dealership, I think the story goes one of the employees is a CX racer and convinced the dealership people to hold a race in the big grass field behind their business. I’m glad they did. Anyway…the course started out on the pavement then quickly hit the grass for a twisty, up and down adventure. My original plan was to run for my warm up but after two laps on the course I felt pretty good and decided to just keep riding around a little bit to stay loose.
After warming up and changing into my racing kit, I made my way down to the starting area. When they called the Cat 5 racers to the starting line I was a little surprised to see that everyone had a CX bike. I thought being the beginner category there would be at least a couple people like me trying it out for the first time on mountain bikes but that wasn’t the case. A few of the guys said they wished they brought their mountain bikes because of the course, which I was not a fan of. Mentally, I was trying to use the fact that everyone had CX bikes and I was on a heavy ass mountain bike as motivation to carry me through this 30 minute sufferfest I was about to embark on. I still did that.
At the gun I got clipped in right away, but got my doors blown in on the pavement. I hit the grass in DFL, but made one pass as we made the first sweeping left hand turn. After a short, bumpy straight section we hit a short steep climb, I jumped out of the saddle and stomped on my pedals to catch the wheel of a pair of riders ahead of me. At the top of the climb we made a hairpin turn, dropped back down a short steep descent into an off-camber left hand turn then back up another short climb. We crested the climb then hit a section of switchback turns that led into the sketchiest part of the course (for me at least) coming out of the third switch back was a barrier. I had not prepared for this rouge barrier. I prepared myself for the seemingly standard set of two barriers, a run up and possibly stairs, but not this 180 degree turn with a barrier thrown in.
Fortunately I was able to practice it a couple times and I made sure to try it once at what I figured full speed would be. I powered out of the second turn and came into the barrier turn with a full head of steam. This was one of the many ‘moments of truth, for me in this race. My dismounting practice worked out well, because I successfully unclipped, dug into the turn, hopped over the barrier then ran past one of the guys I was trailing and leapt back onto my bike. It took me a few extra seconds to clip back into my pedals, but I was able to catch the wheel of the rider ahead of me and follow him into the next section of the course. My heart was pounding, partially from the hard early effort and part from surviving my first dismount/remount. Honestly, I’ve been working on the remount part of it for a while. I successfully used a cross style remount in the Tri I did over the summer and even though I’m sure I looked like an idiot, knowing that I’d done it in a race before made me confident I could do it without falling on my face every time.
After the trial of the hairpin barrier I latched onto the rider ahead of me and followed him through what turned out to be the toughest part of the course for me. We followed up a nice smooth straight-a-way with another off-camber downhill turn, fortunately everyone warming up on the course had carved out a good line because I would have royally effed this up otherwise. Following the quick decent it was back up a short climb and into a section of super insanely tight corners. The first couple laps I had to use the outrigger to get me around a couple of them, I think the 29 inch wheels made it a little tougher to take some of the tight turns, but I was able to power out of most of the corners pretty well.
We made our way out of the twisty section and I was able to stay right on the heels of the two riders ahead of me. We passed the pit area and turned left into a long straight away that led into one of the cooler parts of the course, the corkscrew. The course corkscrewed in on itself then we spiraled back out. It took a couple laps to figure out how to ride it but once I got the hang of leaning into the constant turn I thought I rode it pretty well. Coming out of the corkscrew we zipped through a couple quick turns, which was one of the few parts of the course where I felt like I was riding fast. Another 90 degree turn led into the section I’d been waiting for/dreading…the barriers. I moved toward the outside tape to give myself some space (definitely a move from my steeplechase days) and dismounted a little earlier than the two guys in front of me. I lifted the bike and hopped the two barriers and made another pass before remounting my bike and pedaling hard to catch the next rider’s wheel.
I thought I handled the mounting and dismounting fairly well, but I’m sure it didn’t look very impressive. I got a few pro tips from my friend Weston after the race via email that I am looking forward to trying out next time.
Once I made my third pass of the race I started to feel more confident. I definitely felt like my fitness was better than some of the guys I was riding with and after nearly a full lap at race speed I felt like my bike handling wasn’t going to cost me a too much. I wasn’t going to win, or even come close to podium but I knew I could at least race the guys around me.
Coming out of the barriers I fought to stay in the middle of our three man group despite taking a horrible line through the next section. It took until I watched the third race before I noticed what line I should have taken. The final stretch of the lap was tailor made for mountain bikes (minus the run-up), steep downhill, then a short climb into a rutty downhill. I cut inside along the tape on the second downhill and took a more aggressive line to make the pass into the lead of our three man group. I don’t know if this was a good idea, but I didn’t like being stuck behind people so I went for it.
At the base of the hill we had to dismount, 180 degree turn then run up the run up. This took some getting use to, but it ended up being a strong point for me. I ended up opening up a little bit of a gap on the two guys behind me despite the next part of the course being the starting paved straight away.
After coming through the finish and starting my second lap I saw two other guys that I thought I could catch so I started grinding to try and catch them as soon as I could. I caught up going into the hairpin barrier and stayed on their wheel for another half a lap before passing and riding into no man’s land. I was way behind the four leaders, but I kept pushing were ever I could and ended up opening a huge gap on the guys behind me.
I felt like I was riding pretty well for most of the race. I definitely lack some important bike handling skills, but I think I did a solid job on my first attempt. I ended up finishing fifth and most importantly I didn’t eat it at any point. I had a couple close calls, I bounced a back tire off one of the barriers, and slipped a couple times on the run up, but nothing too crazy.
Here's the Strava info:
A couple things I learned, which were later confirmed by my good buddy Weston Forsblad…the start matters, like a lot. It was tough being so far behind and having to work to get around slower riders, but at the same time I don’t really know what I’m doing. Also, I need to be gentler when putting my bike down before remounts. On the hairpin barrier turn, twice I nearly dropped my chain from dropping the bike violently. I think this is probably partially due to the weight of my mountain bike, but something I’ll keep in mind. Fortunately, I only dropped the chain from the second rig down to the granny gears and after doing it twice I just shifted before the barriers to prepare myself.
All in all it was a fun experience and I’m glad I tried it. I’m no Tim Johnson, but it’s definitely something that I enjoyed and I will probably take a couple more stabs at it. It was nice to do a race for fun and not worry about time or pace. I just went out and raced with no expectations and that was nice.
