where are things up to in the heartland?

WARNING: Contains race spoilers for those that haven't caught up on the DVD action yet!

Post wise, things have been pretty quiet on the Euro cross front. However, my race watching has continued apace with the downloads from Newsbin coming thick and fast.

In terms of English riders in the women's field, things are looking good over in that little house in Tielt-Winge, Belgium, residence to the Wyman's (as well as Gabby Day and Ian Field). They all seem to be pushing each other hard in training and Helen has come up with some cracking results in the really tough races like Koppenberg (2nd) and Namur (3rd). Only a matter of time now before a really big win in a WC or SP race, Helen...........there have been some wins already in other races including this weekend in Germany following a training break in Portugal. Chapeau!

In the Elite men field, the early season left me somewhat deflated as it seemed that Prince Albert was holding court and no-one dared challenge his title. However King Nys has returned to battle for the crown and there is a new pretender to the throne (enough Royal metaphors there I think!).

Certainly it looked like Niels Albert was going to run away with the season after back to back wins, emphatic in their nature. With Bart Wellens going man down with illness as well, the list of possible riders who could challenge Albert seemed thin on the ground - Nys was out of form, Stybar not quite there and Klaas Vantornout and Kevin Pauwels going well, but not well enough.


Albert's trademark tactic of a blistering attack very early on and a subsequent solo ride to victory has been countered by the others, and he has had some problems too at the start in other races. Either way, he looks more vulnerable now and especially on the technical courses requiring either descending or ascending skills or both. He was simply outclassed at Jaarmarkt and Gavere by Nys who remains the best of the peloton at retaining forward motion when the ground gets tricky. Though Albert did win Gavere, Nys looked much the better rider before his puncture.


Stybar took his time to get up to the speed of Albert and at times, Nys too, but after several recent 3 man showdowns in the final stages of the race, it was only a matter of time before he found the line first and this weekend he did so in emphatic style wining the double header of GVA and Superprestige races. Albert was once again found wanting in technical sections over the weekend, and a certain desparation has come into his riding - he is no longer able to break away at will and ride away. It would seem that he is running out of tools in his toolkit at the moment?

Stybar has developed a much more mature style - hanging back much of the time, sometimes giving the impression he is struggling and at times letting Albert (and others) burn too many matches with attacks that are brought back. He is less impetuous, less emotional and at the moment looking the better rider for me. I think he has been observing Nys, who although strong on blistering attacks is no one trick pony, and Stybar I feel has been learning from the old pro. I was pleased, nay excited, to see his wins this weekend as they signal a confirmation for me that this could be turning into the most exciting season for years - Albert, Nys and Stybar are confirmed winners but Bart returns very soon and Kevin Pauwels I feel, could be due for a win when conditions turn rough and the going super technical. Pauwels is super quiet and reserved but super dogged in a racing situation. He picked up a big win last season, and I look forward to more from him.


We are heading into the 'classic race' period with Koksijde, Overijse and Essen and the Christmas race fest to come including the trilogy of Diegem, Loenhout and Baal. Missing in action though to my great disappointment is the monster sand and mud fest that is Hofstade, scene of some epic racing and epic weather. We could be in for a treat if all three raise their game for this campaign and set us up for a superb Worlds in the fozen wastes of Tabor.

gettin' cross

I love this image from Duncan Here Come the Belgians- it's been inspiring me over the past month to do exactly that. To get out and cross, sometimes alone but mostly in company. And it has paid off. Pushing myself in the company of better riders (thanks Dave H), running through technique with others - it's all helped hone those cross skills still further.

I had the good fortune to be coached many years ago by Ian Small, a legend on the NW cross scene. Ian has been involved with cross for longer than he probably cares to remember, and still competes every weekend in the Veteran Over 70 catagory. When I got into cross, Ian was in the minute (ie 4 members) club I joined, Zodiac. He was also coaching the National Cyclocross Development Squad and kindly ran evening cross sessions in Manchester. Those group sessions were hard - warm up, stretching, runs, technique and mini races. All floodlit and often in the worst of weathers. Those sessions provided the bedrock for good technique - technique which still is hard wired today. I am not the strongest in the mud, not the best downhill, not the canniest racer, but I am as quick as most riders out there at getting on and off, and over barriers or obstacles - those basic cross skills.

One of my recent group sessions included a welcome visit to my neck of the woods by Otley Rich. Though he lives in Yorkshire we can forgive him this indiscretion. Rich is a classy rider - light, very strong and with a smooth style and extensive experience to match. He has a distinct sartorial style too. On every occasion that I can remember last year on the road when we have ridden together, he has rode away from me on the hills, pedalling serenely in a bigger gear. It gets frustrating sometimes but is nonetheless great to watch.


This season in cross races, the roles have been reversed - Rich has been close on my heels but not quite there at the finish to beat me as would be expected on previous form. Training together round my local cross circuit it became apparent to me where I was countering his greater strength and fitness - off the bike, over or around an obstacle, and then back on the bike again. With Belgian Mark, we worked together on barrier technique and on mounting, especially on uphill sections. Like many riders, Rich had a tendency to jump too high, landing slightly heavy on the saddle and losing momentum in the process. Barriers were approached a little too slow and the foot section started a little too early, rather than taking a single stride before and then over the barrier. I enjoyed thinking too about those skills - they were passed onto me and I have taken them for granted over the years. Explaining the little details and the subtle tips to others confirms my own familiarity with the technique. Doing stuff at race pace on a simulated lap or course is also essential. It is one thing to string together a beautiful coast into the barriers, set up for a single stride and mount in a flowing motion when fresh, but when your heart is up in the red zone, your vision blurred and your arms exhausted from previous laps, that smoothness becomes a real struggle. The engrams or patterns of movement that you have hard wired previously become all the more important.

I urge you then, to find a local group, get a few friends together and do some skills work. Design your own course in a local park or wood. You dont need a lot of space, just some imagination and a mindset where you aren't bothered being observed jogging alongside a bike, randomly hopping onto it and picking it up for imaginary barriers that only you can see........

As for Rich, I suspect he will be beating me soon armed with his new toolkit of techniques. But only if he blags his way nearer the front row of the starting grid like I do to ensure a quick get away...........

Team Here Come the Belgians infomercial......

Shameless plug for the Belgians here - I couldn't resist getting busy on xtranormal, a make your own movie site which conveniently has a range of accents to choose from for your characters.

Enjoy. If you can understand those Flemish accents..........

skillsets

Now the dust, or rather mud, has settled on last weekend's NW League race at Brockholes, it feels timely to visit some of the issues raised by this soon to be legendary mudbath.

Photos from the event have given some insight into the problems encountered with a very tough, saturated grass based course, overhung and surounded by trees:

Pic Dave Haygarth

However, with the express intention of starting a bit of a debate, I want to take issue with some of the comments overheard at the event, most of which can be summarised in terms of a moan about the conditions, the amount of running or getting off the bike and a general dissatisfaction about a perceived lack of riding throughout the length of the course.

I should preface this slightly and say that for my 4 year old, the complete bog near the finish was clearly too much and she exited the U12 race somewhat tearfully. Also, that the number of broken rear mechs in the Senior race was well into double figures and Stuart Reid claimed first prize in that category with not one but two Dura Ace rear mechs that met their demise. Some riders were reduced to regularly stopping and clearing out their clogged bottom brackets, brakes and forks. Clearly conditions were on the tough, nay destructive side.

This though is the point - of cross. The necessary skillset of a cross rider is in fact an incredibly varied thing. Cross is not riding fast at all times, without getting off and without encountering natural obstacles. It is not about the steady pacing strategy of a time trial, the smooth fast flow of a bunch in a road race. It is about finding an easier line, a quicker technique on or off the bike, about agility, about grinding it out sometimes.

Cross is also a winter sport. Deliberately. Whilst modern summer crosses can be great fun and useful to keep the body's memory of high intensity, cross's roots can be traced way back to the turn of the century, a time when the Tour de France was more about survival and cross was invented and practiced expressly for 'the physical education of the cyclist'. A fab article by Eugene Christophe from 1921 clearly illustrates this paradigm. Check it out for the photos by way of demonstration.

I dont want to take the discussion down some macho dead end alley, but cross is and should always be challenging. It should throw different challenges at you according to the course, it's condition and the natural or not so natural obstacles along it's duration.

Going back to Brockholes (and I will be, unlike some apparently) the course was heavy. Biblically so in places. It required a minimum of 2 runs. It clogged bikes up and those with either 2 bikes, or God forbid a crew with a jet wash, were at an advantage. But amongst all this, this particular achtervolger rode in the big ring around the entire course for the length of the race. Hardly a bottom gear grind. I did however get off and run quite a number of sections that were (just) rideable. Why? Because it was quicker, and cross is about being quicker than the riders around you. My hours of drills on and off the bike, over obstacles and during off road intervals paid off and I was able to employ the skillset I had developed over time, to it's maximum.

I like most other riders have my preference for certain types of course. I make no bones about saying this was one of them, but equally do not shy away from fast, crit style courses with the kind of tight turns and confined tracks that my 6' 5" frame copes less well with. It's still cross, and I have to be able to cope with whatever comes along. Where I struggle, I work on that weakness and as a result this year my cornering technique has been a lot better, whilst my running and speed off and then on to the bike remains a strength.

Let me know your thoughts - for me it was simply a cross race that required a strategy like any other race, and that strategy required getting off the bike several times a lap. That adaptation to conditions is why, for me, cross is so engrossing. The cleaning up afterwards though was a different matter!


On a purely observational note, I noticed a large number of 'modern' style cross bikes, quite high end models, that were simply unable to cope with the amount of mud and leaves. My trusty, rather old skool Planet X Oom Johan(s) have great clearance, slack angles even and this showed in the fact that they kept going without missing a beat. The clearances on more exotic frames have got tighter, reflecting the trend of the day and what the Euro pros are riding. This however falls a little flat without the pit crew a Euro Pro has and the access to a jet wash every lap or so. Food for thought......

Oh, and Green Michelin Muds on tub carcasses are better than Rhinos in a straight shoot out. Better cornering and less prone to clog (interestingly) when things are super sticky. The positions might be reversed in really sloppy thin mud though. Maybe.

off the back a little

As followers of the beautifully stylish Velodramatic and Here Come the Belgians blogs will know, the sheer level of other commitments we all have can easily get in the way of a good honest post. Michael from Velodramatic nicely summed it up as being off the back of the race a little and struggling back through the cars....

No exception here with the life/blog balance resulting in a lack of posting (no claims to stylishness included). However, my priorities are in order and I have indeed been out riding veldrijd, in competition and in training. So much so, I thought it would be timely to revisit a post from last January looking at tubs, that bitter sweet obsession that graces this little corner of cyberspace.

Last Jan I directly compared the offerings from Dugast and FMB, something which garnered a surprising amount of interest based on a recent quick Google search and the number of times this post appears to have been referenced on forums, chatrooms and other cross based sources of dispute:

http://crossjunkie.blogspot.com/2009/01/dugast-vs-fmb-tubulars.html

Judging by the number of visits from Canadian and US readers (indeed worldwide readers), it also spread the crossjunkie brand somewhat farther than I had ever intended - a welcome serendipity and the source of something to live up to.

I have been riding different tubs this year so far and thought it would be timely to present my truly scientific and statistically significant findings...........

Preparations for the monumental 3 Peaks Cyclocross centred around some new and relatively untested tires, all from FMB. The trouble is the Peaks is such a unique and unrepresentative race that all data collected by the event is considered null and void when it comes to more traditional mud based riding, over 1 hour and no rocks (well except at Otterspool).


After the Peaks the FMB 34mm Fango Superprestige (sounds like a 70s Italian supercar) have been literally dusted off and relieved of their 60psi to be reborn at 30psi and liberally coated with mud round my secret wood spaces. The Challenge Fango itself (from which the FMB takes its tread) is billed as a mud tire. Despite the fact that FMB casings are much more supple and in the latex walled SP version, capable of running very low without folding over, I have to say I have been unimpressed. The tire that was absolutely superb on the road and rocks of the Peaks has not translated well at all to mud. It's sketchy in corners, causing some heartrate monitor bpm peaking moments, and failes to hook up well on the rear in sloppy, muddy grass. Big disappointment.

Or is it. Perhaps I am being too harsh here, as the Rhino and Green Michelin Mud with which I am comparing it, are true mud tires and this has perhaps cannily been billed as more of a cross-over tire - one to use in a wider range of conditions as pointed out by this article from Velonews. Either way, it doesn't compete with the best mud tires out there, perhaps more so in my FMB incarnation as there is apparently a noticeable and negative difference between the 34mm performance in mud and the 32mm, due to the way the side knobs are elevated on the bigger casing. Despite this, it has been in regular use in training as the less than perfect grip makes riding my more specific mud tires in races an absolute blast. 'For the technique, good is it.' - Yoda, Star Wars:Attack of the Clone Tubulars.


So what is working well this season then? Apart from the ubiquitous Rhino which maintains its spot as mud king, I am running a couple of pairs of old Green Michelin treads on either Dugast or FMB casings. I had hoarded some old Green Mich treads for ages (sending them off to FMB) and managed to pick up the Dugast conversions second hand too. Both work like a dream in the mud, feel solid through technical roots and the rougher sections and run fast on the tarmac too. Shame they are no longer available as I feel they rival Rhinos in the worst mud and handle everything else too......

A brief mid season break from racing is coming to an end soon (did I ever get going enough to call it a season?) and then it's back into the fray for some good solid North West events in November followed by a National Trophy round in December to really put me in my place. The standard of the Vets at National level is somewhat eyewatering to a keen but firmly amateurish enthusiast such as myself. However the turbo is busy, the secret cross circuits are being worn to their winter state and the booze is taking more of a back seat now. Onwards and upwards.

racing line

Racing at the delightfully named Boggart Hole Clough last Sunday, I realised just how much I still had to learn about the artform that is cross. From the handlebar banging shenanigins (of which more later) at the start, to the endless chasing of brethren from Liverpool, the race provided a rich seam of experience.

Funny, as I have ridden a fair few cross races over time, but the combination of a gloriously varied and challenging track with older but wiley and strong opposition combined to put one over on me - in a way that just left me wanting more.

Former National Cross Champion and double 3 Peaks winner Nick Craig, has oft been quoted musing that cross is his favourite discipline because it is not exclusively the fittest rider that wins, but often the one that shows the most guile in the dark art of cross, rather than bike riding. I have paraphrased him somwehat, but you get my drift.

Pic: Richard Weltman

I love these North West League races - they are full of battles within battles, right the way through the field. Riders come back week after week, not hoping for a win or to be top in their age category, but to beat their nemesis from the previous week, to keep it going for a lap or two longer before being lapped by the leader or a team mate, to finish in the top half, third or whatever of the field.

And this is why I love cross - none of road racing's being dropped on the first lap and slinking back to the changing rooms rather than ride in anonymity and isolation around the course. No lonely furrow, against the clock and the inconsiderate drivers with a roundabout (for crying out loud!) to spice things up. No sir - cold hard racing from gun to tape, at our own level but in company and with encouragement.

In the end at Boggart I was undone by a crafty rider, older and wiser, though to be fair with sronger legs too. Ray provided me with a great 40 minutes entertainment once I had caught him after the melee that was the start. Attacking me up the tarmac climb every lap, I would claw him and his team mate back each time, about half a lap later. Then the process would start again, me sometimes getting away on some more technical sections to be pulled back and attacked again. If we were at the front of the race it would have been thrilling to watch - for me, positioned in the late twenty's out a of a hundred strong field, it was simply great fun. Ray's a bugger though - on catching me he would raise the pace again. It must have hurt somewhat but it sure demoralised me and made me doubt myself. He beat me fair and square, with strength of leg and character too. And I learnt some valuable lessons in the process. Cheers!

The handlebar banging was a relatively new one to me. Cross is competitive, sure. I want to improve as much as anyone else too. But for me, diving up the outside of the first bend at the start, cutting across to bang into me several times and nearly down me in the bunch inside, only to fade and go backwards half a lap later is taking things a bit far. I am to be fair a pretty meek soul, but it would be nice if riders who know they are likely to finish up mid pack or lower would let faster competitors get on with it at the start without forcing their way up and then getting in the way on the opening lap as their pace fades. There were several riders who fell into this particular category..... I was fairly well down too on this first lap but matched pace with riders in the top 15 quite happily for a while as I picked through the field.

I suspect there is the potential for some debate on this one, and given a wide field start then I have no problem with everyone for themselves. However we were gridded on a narrow tarmac climb and as an infrequent rider I have no right to the front of the grid. Neither too though have those who know they will be lapped by those around them later in the race but who still push to the couple of rows behind the front....

Let's see some some self regulation on this one to make it a better race for all. Insults, brickbats and other complaints to

crossjunkieisawhinger@crossjunkie.com

loose ends

By way of tying things up a little, this photo of a tired, strung out Belgian and some other superb ones of Peaks riders on and off Penyghent, appeared after a little pause on cyclingimages.co.uk

The photos of the head of the race as the leading few riders climbed the track above the right hand turn up the escarpment to the summit are particularly good. They graphically illustrate the pain and commitment of riding high up on PYG, at this late stage of the race. The rest of field is captured concentrating and grimacing as they begin the long descent down.

I make no apologies for dragging up the Peaks again, a couple of weeks after things have moved on. I find myself in limbo really - the pain has long gone, the endorphin rush even more fleeting. But it is still there in my head. Constantly. I feel at a loose end and inextricably I find myself drawn to my nice new pair of Inov8 fell shoes, heading out yesterday from of my brand new office on foot and literally straight up the valley side via a disused incline from the quarry above - a replicant of a Simon Fell calf creaser if ever there was one. Next year, lunchtimes will be reps up this industrial age relic, trying to harden those quads up too with the bruising bike laden descents in between.


I can't settle entirely on cross either at the moment - I have some races planned in late October and November but the turbo appeals not a lot at this stage. It's the hills that are still calling, as Autumn sets in properly and the air chills down nicely. Having moved offices too (though only a couple of miles down the valley), I have set about exploring the secret places round these parts. A mini cobbled climb here and there and more importantly for now, a cross circuit in the woods and fields above the office on the other side of the narrow valley. I love nosing around, poring over maps, trying to ascertain what little secrets can be gleaned from the local area - a few lost lunchtime hours ferreting around to hide that hidden gem of a track, or climb.


It really should be back to cross now - reps, intervals, drills. The formality of this style training has yet to fully grab me this year, a hangover from the off-the-wall style of riding that is represented by the Peaks, part fell-running, part mountain-biking, part cross. But it will come - turbo and all. Probably in a big rush too, if previous years are anything to go by.

Oh and after the honour of having a Peaks post printed in the official 3 Peaks Programme, a crafty collaboration between myself and another self-confessed Peaks addict should result in some printed matter over in a magazine on the other side of the Atlantic. We hope. More to be revealed...........