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.

Eric Brunnger (Philadelphia Cyclocross School) took the win in the MAC (Mid-Atlantic) Series SuperCrossCup on Day One. Positions two through four were dominated by the …

HENDERSONVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA — Skies were cloudy but temperatures were mild at Hendersonville today for day one of the North Carolina Grand Prix. In the …

It’s that time of year again: time to start looking at cyclocross clinics, and time to start planning your race schedule for the Fall. Cyclocross Magazine will be publishing our 2011-2012 cyclocross calendar, complete with all races, clinics and cyclocross-specific events. However, while we will try to add as many races and clinics as we can, the best way to make sure that your event is listed on our calendar is to use our Submission Form and add your event, so it will go directly onto our calendar.

Pint-sized racer Emma White has a lot to be proud of. At 13-years-old, she’s already raced and beat a good portion of the women racing in the New England area. And when she races in just her age group, as she did at Nationals this year, she’s a serious force to be reckoned with. Now, she’s in the middle of an intense road season as a junior, but took some time out to answer some questions for us.

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?

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 …

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.

During the season, I made sure I raced every race in the series, even races I don’t like, just to maintain my spot in the points for the trophy. To me it was purely a symbolic and tangible piece of evidence that I could still race my bike, just 18 months after the crash.

UCI-ranked cyclocross racer and four-time Danish national champion Joachim Parbo spent this week working to make bicycling in the U.S. safer when he hosted a delegation of key American transportation officials touring Aarhus, Denmark through the Bikes Belong Foundation’s Bicycling Design Best Practices Program.

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.

Lazer Sport wants to take a moment to remember our friends in Japan and help them in their effort to recover. So, as we launch our new Armor helmet model for 2012, we are offering a special limited edition “Support Japan” graphic with a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this special edition helmet going towards the Internal Red Cross disaster relief effort (www.ifrc.org/en/donation-japan).

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.

Add your event to our 2011-2012 cyclocross race calendar for North America. This includes New England, Seattle, Portland, the Bay Area, MABRA, MAC, Colorado, SoCal, …

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.

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.

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.

Davide Frattini (Hudz-Subaru) went to the front in the first lap of Day 1 of the Toronto International Cyclo-cross event and never relinquished that position, …

Aigle, Switzerland – Czech cyclocross star Zdenek Stybar (Telenet-Fidea) has started the 2010/2011 cyclocross season exactly where he finished last season – out in front …

Aigle, Switzerland – On a cool day among the snow-dusted mountains of the Alps, Katie Compton (Planet Bike) came from behind on a fast, challenging …