Posts in category the racer’s view

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.

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.

First week of June and what we laughingly call Spring here on the Colorado Front Range has instantly transformed into summer. A week ago we were thrilled to see temperatures in the high 60s, now we’re into the 90s. Two weeks ago I was planning my training rides so that they would fall in between the inevitable 2:30 rainstorm that showed itself just as I was ending my teaching day. That’s a distant memory already. Now I’m frantically searching for sleeveless jerseys and sunscreen. 14 days ago I had to dig deep to find the motivation to roll out the door, today I’m chomping at the bit. Yeah, I hate to admit it since it seems so inconsistent with cyclocross racing, but I’m not a foul weather trainer. Racing in the mud, snow, rain … no problem. Looking out my window on flooded streets and thinking about spending the next two hours in the elements … not my fave.

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.

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 …

Last week in Collegiate Chronicles, you met Rutgers University Cycling Team’s Director Mark Vareschi, and read about some of his fond memories of the team and its evolution over the years. Today, Vareschi offers some wisdom for other collegiate teams about building a cyclocross team in your collegiate conference.

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.

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.

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!

It was just last year when I wrote that short-track mountain bike racing was the key to preparing for the upcoming ’cross season. Not racing the road, I still wanted to keep that edge that only real racing can give you. So, I turned to the C.U. Cycling Short Track Series. The fit seemed perfect -short, intense races that mimicked the effort and style of cyclocross racing. Because they were short, they allowed for more training on race days. I’ve added something else. Something even more intense and painful in it’s own way. Endurance racing.

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?

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.

Back in February, Cyclocross Magazine sat down with Albert in his mobile home before the final race of the Superprestige series in Middelkerke to put your questions to the new king of Belgian cross.

This week, we introduced a new feature of the site called Newbie News, which is designed to help new racers learn some of the ins and outs of the greatest sport on earth, confront their fears of race areas like barriers, bunny hopping or dismounts, and to give riders a chance to ask questions that they might have been afraid to ask otherwise. (You know the saying ‘there are no stupid questions’? Yeah, that’s extremely true in cyclocross.) The Newbie feature is hugely important to me, because we’ve all been there. At some point, even Katie Compton was a newbie. And not too long ago, I was seriously new to the sport. I’m still new enough that I’m learning a lot as I post these articles, and it’s my hope that you’ll be learning along with me.

Welcome to the Collegiate Chronicles, the new column that features all things collegiate (sans the keg parties, of course). Collegiate cyclocross is a fast-growing sector of the sport with little written about it, and we plan to change that. We’ll be taking a look at collegiate riders from all levels and from all over the country, race organizers, conference directors and some of the great characters that make up collegiate-level cyclocross.

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! Leave messages in the comments, find me on the Cowbell Forums or email molly [at] cxmagazine.com.

As the Giro d’Italia wraps up this weekend and the Tour of California wrapped up on Sunday you would think that the Pro Cyclocross news would be slowing down, but think again. Lars Boom has re-upped with Rabobank. The Tour of Belgium, a cross racer’s off-season paradise? Kevin Eeckhout of Sunweb-Revor retires at the ripe old age of 21. Amy Dombroski and Katie Compton head overseas for a little pre-season European dirt. Georgia Gould, Ms. Consistency? Todd Wells, best American on the dirt. In this week’s Working Man’s Edition we look back to Spencer Paxson, Jake Wells and head to a master’s working man Peter Webber.

Cyclocross Magazine’s print subscribers have long enjoyed our comprehensive product reviews, especially our in-depth, objective bike reviews and tests. Issue 12, mailing now, features reviews of the Cannondale Super X, the All City Nature Boy and the Fuji Altamira with two full pages dedicated to each bike, with real-world riding and racing and as always, no advertorial.

Today marks the start of our new bi-weekly column, Women’s Wednesdays, where the focus shifts to matters specific to women in the sport. This column will be dedicated to all aspects of women’s racing, from coverage of pro women to women-specific bikes to talking frankly about how to get more women involved in cyclocross. We begin this week by hearing from a few of our favorite ladies of ‘cross, finding out what they’ve been up to in the off-season and seeing what they’re looking forward to in the Fall.

Meet Molly Hurford, Cyclocross Magazine’s new Online Editor. Every Tuesday, you can read about her cyclocross and editing exploits in her new column, The Girl with the Cowbell Tattoo. She’ll be looking at the content offered every week and mirroring her training and racing to reflect the advice from the experts … and then sharing how that advice turned out for her!

In coming weeks, we’ll be debuting a whole lot of great new features on the website, including quite a few new regular columns. 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.

This week, Masters racer and Cyclocross Magazine columnist Lee Waldman takes some time to take off the helmet and put on the philosopher’s hat – but …

Cyclocross Magazine columnist Paul Warloski returns this week as he continues profiling his return to cyclocross after a near-devastating injury. Follow Paul as he takes us …