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• Newbie News: Building Your Own Barriers

  13 June 11 • 11 comments

  

  Building a set of collapsible barriers with PVC pipe is a piece of cake! If you’ve ever attending a cyclocross practice session, you probably have seen a set of PVC barriers erected. For one thing, they’re incredibly easy to break down and set up. An added bonus is that if a newer, more unsteady rider crashes into them (or if a seasoned pro comes in too hot and crashes into them), it won’t really hurt anything but his or her pride.

• This Week on Cyclocross Magazine: June 13

  13 June 11 • 0 comment

  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, 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 [...]

• It’s Always a Good Day to Ride: Learning to Trust the Bike and Find Those Mad ’Cross Skillz

  11 June 11 • 3 comments

  

  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.

• Pro Cyclocross Rumors and Rumblings Week of June 10th, 2011

  10 June 11 • 2 comments

  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 – Avoiding the Burp, Choosing the Best Tires, and a DIY System (Updated, Part III)

  9 June 11 • 79 comments

  

  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 long experimented with tubeless tires on our cyclocross bikes, in both cyclocross and mountain bike races, and feel that there are now so many attractive options for putting together a [...]

• Newbie News: Why Do A Clinic?

  8 June 11 • 2 comments

  

  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.

• Women’s Wednesdays: Racing, Training and Women’s Roles in Cyclocross with Amy Dombroski

  8 June 11 • 0 comment

  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.

• The Girl With The Cowbell Tattoo: Living the Dream

  7 June 11 • 0 comment

  

  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.

• Training Tuesdays: What is Creatine, and Should You Care?

  7 June 11 • 3 comments

  

  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.

• Mechanical Mondays: The Conical Brush

  6 June 11 • 7 comments

  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 walks us through the many uses for a five dollar conical brush. (We also love baby bottle brushes for cleaning out water bottles, and they can be found for about [...]

• This Week on Cyclocross Magazine: June 6

  6 June 11 • 0 comment

  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: Cyclocross Pro, Comic Character and … Freeride Mountain Biker?

  5 June 11 • 1 comment

  

  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!

• Pro Cyclocross Rumors & Rumblings Week of June 3rd, 2011

  4 June 11 • 0 comment

  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?

• Eligibility Guidelines for 2012 Masters Cyclocross World Championships Set

  3 June 11 • 1 comment

  

  Got dreams of winning the blue-and-rainbow-striped jersey at the 2012 Cyclocross Masters World Championships in Louisville? Although we presented much of this criteria earlier in our reports from the USA Cycling Promoter’s Summit, the official criteria is out and it’s time to study up to make sure you qualify and meet the rules. This season, it’ll be interesting to watch the masters-age men and women at UCI races as some will have to keep track of their position to avoid earning points.

• BABOCO Training Camp, Cyclocross Style with Christine Vardaros

  3 June 11 • 0 comment

  

  It’s still four months before my first cyclocross race and season preparation is already in full swing. It was kicked off by our BABOCO Cycling Team training camp in Benidorm, Spain. We were treated to eleven days of road riding in the mountains under warm sunny skies. It was especially welcome after a long, bitterly cold winter spent in a paper-thin skinsuit.