After getting a crossbike the other week I did two cross training sessions to remind my body what hard work feels like and watched some youtube videos to try and learn some of the skills involved in preparation for the Supercross Cup race in Corcaigh Park, Dublin on Saturday. Cyclocross is a funny sport where you race laps of a short course around a grassy field on a bike with dropped handlebars, knobbly skinny tyres and cantilever brakes. Those who haven’t tried it often dismiss it, yet anyone who does it seems to get totally addicted. It’s fast and furious with only split seconds between each rider, and little margin for error, so racing can get pretty exciting but very painful.
looks easy? horrible part of the course!
There was a mass start of 65 riders, with nine laps of a short course taking 7-8.5 minutes a lap. I was towards the back of the group as we lined up, and surrounded by aggressive guys I lost even more places in the first few minutes (next week I’m going to sharpen my elbows and pretend I’m at a world cup!). It was straight into a section of greasy, tight corners on the grass and with so many riders squeezing into a tight track at high speed several people came down and took others surrounding with them. I managed to avoid crashes but lost time at each corner as people bunched up.
After a while things began to spread out and I got into a group riding at a steady if painfully intense pace. Since races are so short (about an hour), cyclocross is super intense and you’re literally flat out for the whole thing – not easy when you haven’t raced in 2 months! Skinny tyres and rubbish brakes on wet grass with tight corners means there is a lot of high speed sliding around the place on the edge of being in control. It took a bit to get used to the limits of the bike, but the more of the edge you ride the more fun it is. I seemed to be surrounded by roadies with some rather suspect bike handling skills – legs and arms sticking out all over the place and way too much braking, but although I could get ahead on the corners, as soon as we got to a horrible flat tarmac section, they’d come motoring past and I had to dig deep and ignore the burning sensation in my legs to stick to them.
The next issue was dealing with the wooden boards placed across the course – unless you’re very confident at big bunny-hops you have to jump off the bike and carry it running over these. There is a real technique involved to do it without losing time, and by the end of nine laps I was starting to get it but still had a few amateurish fumbles trying to find my pedals after leaping back on the bike. When you do get it right it’s great fun, bounding over the boards and jumping onto the bike at speed.
Since the laps are so short and the course kept looping back on itself, you could always see the next target in front, or people coming to catch from behind. Towards the end of lap eight I kept catching glimpses of eventual winner Robin Seymour powering along and getting closer and closer to me. I was determined not to get lapped but it felt a bit like running away from a tidal wave as I struggled to find another gear and hold him off! I managed it but it made the final lap even more painful and there was still a lot of chance to jostle for positions before the end. Coming into the final loop a guy I’d been racing with all day jumped past me only to crash on the next corner. He was back on quickly but I slipped ahead and then had to sprint like mad to hold him off at the finish.
I’m pretty sure that at the time the whole thing seemed incredibly hard and painful, yet somehow I came out of it thinking it was great and really looking forward to the next one. Racing does wierd things to your brain! I finished 1st female and 31st overall, full results are here. Thanks to Team Worc for a great course and event.