Game face, pain cave, race face … as cyclocross racers, we’ve heard those terms thrown around nearly every time we’ve raced our bikes. But do you ever stop and think about what they really refer to, and what they mean for your racing?
You typically do not think about college during the summer. Just as you do not think about cyclocross in the summer. However, if you are reading this article then chances are you are hooked. Just as I am hooked. My name is James McCabe and I am a junior student at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I am also the president of the Cycling Club at Wake. Prior to my involved with the club my freshmen year, the club was just a bunch of road bikers with Australian accents. (Well, that was just one rider, but that is beside the point.) I have taken the Cycling Club from a bunch of disorganized roadies to one of the stronger cyclocross teams in the Atlantic Collegiate Cycling Conference (ACCC).
One of the best cyclocross skills to learn as a new racer is learning how to take “transitions.” (Not just barriers: transitions can mean a …
Want to know what to look for on Cyclocross Magazine this week? Worried you might have missed something last week? Fear not, because we’ve got it all mapped out for you. Every Monday, we have a preview of what’s in store for the week, and we’ll let you know about some of the great articles that you might have missed last week. If there’s any story you’d like us to cover, any burning question you want answered, or any cool racer you’d like to hear from, let us know! Leave messages in the comments, find me on the Cowbell Forums or email molly [at] cxmagazine.com.
Reigning Champion Lewis Rattray has taken out the first round of the Dirty Deeds Urban Cyclocross Series in an impressive display of skills and raw power.
For our featured photos this week, Joe Sales, perhaps our most valued contributor, has a gallery of his photos from US Cyclocross Nationals that just went live. If you read Cyclocross Magazine or visit the website regularly, you’ve seen his photos, including on several covers of the magazine.
Last year at Interbike, Gates Carbon Drive Systems announced its new CenterTrack carbon belt drive drivetrain, and Cyclocross Magazine is the first publication to test the system on a cyclocross bike. We’ve recently received a Raleigh carbon singlespeed outfitted with the new CenterTrack system and have enjoyed a few rides on the stunning 15 pound machine.
Even in the “off-season,” Georgia Gould is a force to be reckoned with. When we last checked in with her in our first Women’s Wednesday column, we learned that she’s been chasing a win in the Mountain Bike World Cup series, as well as the PROxct series. Recently, she finished in the top 15 at the Dalby Forest mountain bike race, and there’s still a lot of mountain bike racing to be done before the season is over and cyclocross begins. Lucky for us, Georgia had a few minutes to spare to talk to us about this season, her upcoming cyclocross season, and what it’s like to be a pro woman in cycling.
As May turned to June and as June is quickly disappearing, it’s occurred to me that the start of cyclocross season is actually not as far away as I thought. At first, this notion made me want to start jumping for joy. But then, it hit me just how unprepared I am for cyclocross season and just how big my “to do” list is. Like Mike Birner suggested in his piece on Building a Base in the Off-Season, I had made a list of what I needed to work on over the summer. And yeah, it’s a long list.
It takes about a week to get Santiago Lorenzo on the phone, and when I do he doesn’t want to extrapolate about heat training. Lorenzo is a research scientist who, until recently, studied at the University of Oregon before picking up his PhD and moving to sunnier climes. He’s also an NCAA champion and 2004 Olympian in the decathlon, which means he’s a serious athlete (do you know the 10 events in the decathlon? I didn’t and went to look them up — anyone who can excel at all of them, and over two days, knows a thing or two about getting the most out of one’s body). He’s also published a study about heat training that may change the way we prepare for hot and cold events.
We’ve been sitting on this info since March 1st when we originally posted about Shimano’s new cyclocross components, but now that Shimano has finally lifted the embargo date on it, we can give you the real scoop on the new Di2 electronic shifting for Ultegra.
We’ve been reviewing new tires like the Limus from Challenge, and talking about some great wheelsets you might want to consider for the season. A …
Want to know what to look for on Cyclocross Magazine this week? Worried you might have missed something last week? Fear not, because we’ve got it all mapped out for you. Every Monday, we have a preview of what’s in store for the week, and we’ll let you know about some of the great articles that you might have missed last week. If there’s any story you’d like us to cover, any burning question you want answered, or any cool racer you’d like to hear from, let us know! Leave messages in the comments, find me on the Cowbell Forums or email molly [at] cxmagazine.com.
For Father’s Day, we wanted to take a second to give a shout-out to all the cyclocross and cycling fathers (mothers too!) out there who have taken the time to help their child (or grown adult) experience the joys of riding or racing a bike. After all, without Cyclocross Magazine’s Chief Cowbell Ringer Andrew Yee’s still-cycling father madly searching for affordable used kid’s bikes for him, converting his little 22″ wheel road bike to a track bike on a weekly basis, and literally pushing him up hills on family rides, there’s no way Cyclocross Magazine would exist today (read more about the background story via CXhairs’ interview). CXM’s Online gal Molly also credits her father with her early and recent cycling addiction. And so as further tribute to Father’s Day, we take a look at a cyclocross racing father and son, Nick and Donald Catlin. This father and son duo travels together for road and cyclocross season, even sleeping in a tent on top of their SUV together! Clearly, these two are close, and we wanted to hear from this dynamic duo about how they really feel about their close-knit relationship.
The middle of summer is quickly approaching. Molly Cameron has an FMB tire order ready to go out. Challenge and FMB are releasing new mud treads to challenge the famed Dugast Rhino. New disc ready bikes are hitting the tech news pages. So, with all that happening, where are the pros? Amy Dombroski is on her way to Italy for Marathon Cross-Country Worlds. Katie Compton hangs up the knobbies for a night. Stybar as Boonen’s lead out man? Putting two and two together for the new Cannondale–Cyclocrossworld.com rider. 2011 Blitz to the Barrel attracts ’cross stars. Tom Meeusen knocks off two mountain bike specialists. In this week’s Working Man’s Edition: Brady Kappius takes on the Rocky Mountain Ultra Endurance Series and Logan Owen is destroying the Washington state road races.
Challenge Tire’s long-awaited Limus cyclocross tubular, its mud-specific tire and answer to the Dugast Rhino, is in production and recent prototypes are already here in the States. After bringing you tread photos of the Limus from Interbike 2010, Cyclocross Magazine has acquired photos of early versions of the new Challenge tubular that’s named after the Latin word for Mud.
Luke Keough is remarkably mature for his age, and rightly so: though he’s only 19 years old, he’s been racing for 15 of them and is extremely serious about what he does. That’s not to say that he doesn’t love horsing around with his teammates, weaving around on the road during recovery rides so he can hop into ditches on his road bike, eating ice cream as recovery food or spending an evening at the mall goofing off, but when he’s on the bike, he’s all business. And as he should be: even at 19, his list of palmares surpasses some seasoned pros: he’s the two-time National Champion for the 17-18 field, placed tenth in the 17-18 field at worlds in Italy, won the Elite race both days at Northhampton at Cycle-Smart International in 2010 and the list goes on.
byMolly Hurford If you see me at a cyclocross race, road race or triathlon, the odds are good that you’ve noticed the big burly guy …
by Molly Hurford Want to know what to look for on Cyclocross Magazine this week? Worried you might have missed something last week? Fear not, …
Like most riders who come to ’cross from the road, I sometimes struggle with technical skills.
I’ve learned a lot in the past five years. Yet I still grab too much brake, don’t trust my tires enough, and slow down too much before barriers and corners.
The remedy this season? Lots of practice in a park nearby and lots of mountain bike riding.
Weeknight racing, long weekend road and mountain bike rides, maybe even a mountain bike race or a road race: these are all the little things we try and do to get our “cyclocross fix,” but it’s not the same. There is no substitute for the gasping breaths, the burning legs, the cross-eyed attempts at clearing the sand pit or the barriers. But we try to capture the feeling with our substitute races and by seeing what is happening in the world of pro cyclocross racers.
Going tubeless for cyclocross is an attractive option for anyone tired of pinch-flatting clinchers or gluing and re-gluing (or flatting) expensive tubulars. Cyclocross Magazine has …
The idea of going to a cyclocross clinic can be daunting for some. It’s nerve-wracking to be confronted with trying new techniques, learning completely new skills or even just practicing old ones in front of a crowd. And for me, lining up and taking an off-camber taped-off turn with everyone else watching sounds sort of like the fourth or fifth circle of hell. However, it’s not that bad. Really. In fact, it can be pretty darn fun, not to mention extremely helpful.
Since she started racing in 2006, Amy Dombroski has had a remarkable rise to fame. She’s also been a great contributor to Cyclocross Magazine. Lately, she’s been prepping for the fall season, mixing it up at various road and mountain bike events, most recently the back to back World Cup races in Dalby Forest and Offenburg. Lucky for us at Cyclocross Magazine, she had a few hours in a car this weekend, giving her time to answer our questions between races.
This week, I’m not entirely cyclocross-specific, per se, but getting an insider view of the pro life is definitely something that may be of interest for those who are interested in pursuing a full-time career as a cyclocross racer. Getting to be a “peripheral pro” for a week, as I would put it, was a whole new experience for someone used to working a solid 80 hour week with minimal time for training. As it turns out, these guys take rest just as hard as they take training and racing, and they certainly excel at it. So, this week has had me thinking a lot about what it means to be a pro cyclist in the US today, and if it’s something I could ever imagine doing, having witnessed it firsthand, from prerace meetings to the trip to the mall in search of gold chains.
Creatine is one of those supplements that you hear about with relative frequency, but what exactly is it supposed to be doing? Studies about the supplement have been cropping up for the last couple of years, and they all seem to have slightly differing opinions on the usefulness of creatine. It’s been suggested that creatine supplements help to reduce fatigue on muscles, improve recovery, and increase muscle strength. That’s a tall order for a nitrogenous organic acid. Today, we’re looking at a round-up of studies done on the topic to see what the experts have to say.
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that when it comes to bike maintenance, sometimes the simplest tools can be the most effective. For example, Dave Drumm …
Want to know what to look for on Cyclocross Magazine this week? Worried you might have missed something last week? Fear not, because we’ve got it all mapped out for you. Every Monday, I’ll be giving you a little preview of what’s in store for the week, and letting you know about some of the great articles that you might have missed last week. If there’s any story you’d like us to cover, any burning question you want answered, or any cool racer you’d like to hear from, let us know!
Tim Johnson has been a seriously busy guy lately, and we don’t just mean racing. He’s been popping up everywhere, from Rapha’s video previews of the Amgen Tour of California to RedBull’s Crossroads videos to … a Frazz comic strip? Cyclocross Magazine caught up with Johnson on Sunday, while he took a break from playing with his new four-month-old puppies, though not without a break mid-interview while Johnson had to chase them down after they took off rabbit-hunting in his backyard. I did learn that he is an extremely good whistler, after listening to several attempts to call the lab pups back without stopping our interview!
Summer heat is rolling through the country as both the everyday ’cross racer and the pro line up on the weekends and weeknights to build a little bit of extra fitness. September is just around the corner and will be here before you know it. So as we get closer, what are the pro crossers up to?
