Posts tagged girl with the cowbell tattoo

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.

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.

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!