A note from Joe: Today's post is from Debbie, who you may remember as the swimmer from the half ironman relay a few years ago. I pestered her into trying out Cyclocross and this is her account of what happened.
“You know you want to try it,” the email read. I let my
cursor hover over the ‘reply’ button while I considered how to respond. My
co-worker had been bugging me to check out this weird sport called cyclocross
for over a year now. I love my road bike and I love my mountain bike even more.
Even so, I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of jumping off a perfectly
good bike so I could drag it over obstacles. But, I'm always up for learning
something new.
I clicked on the ‘reply’ button and told Joe, “Alright – you
talked me into it.”
The CXpreX folks are putting on a series of four clinics in
Ann Arbor which involve about 45 minutes of instruction followed by a
super-casual race. When I showed up for the first clinic, I had no idea what to
expect. I unloaded my bike and realized two things – I was the only woman there
and I was the only person with a mountain bike.
As more riders trickled in, I was glad to see a few other
women and at least one other person with a heavy mountain bike in tow. The clinic began with the instructors
introducing themselves and explaining their history with cyclocross. Each
instructor collected about 5 people and started working on skills. My group
started off learning the best technique for jumping over obstacles. Our
instructor, Adrienne O’Day explained the proper technique for unclipping from
your pedals as you approach the obstacle, dismounting your your bike, hoisting
your bike over the obstacle and smoothly re-mounting after the obstacle. Pretty
basic stuff, but tougher than it looks (especially when your bike weighs ~30
pounds).
They had two types of obstacle on which to practice. The
typical ones were made of wood and looked like they would hurt if you crashed
into them. They also had obstacles made from PVC tubing that looked a little
less intimidating. I decided to start with the plastic one. Jumping over the
obstacle took me back to my days of running hurdles on the high school track
team. I did a few jumps over the plastic barrier then tried the wooden one. I
was feeling pretty confident about the whole thing until the guy in front of me
couldn’t unclip in time and crashed hard. It looked pretty painful, so I went
back to jumping over the plastic barrier.
After we practiced the obstacles, we talked about race
techniques. Adrienne recommended doing a trial run of the course before every
race. And with that, we all did a trial run of the course that had been set up
for us at Leslie Park. I was happy to see that the path that was outlined was
wide enough for two or three riders to run abreast. In other words, there was
plenty of room for others to pass me. The course included a lot of winding
curves, hairpin turns and one killer hill.
As I looked at the hill with trepidation, Joe told me that
one race he’d participated in had involved a hill that was rideable. I decided
to make use of my mountain biking skills and ride the hill instead of running
up it. As I started up the incredibly steep grade, I quickly realized that my
approach was laughable. Soon I was pushing my bike up a 40%* incline, sucking
wind and cursing my MTB shoes that were not meant for climbing on slippery
grass and dirt.
After a couple trial runs, they started the race. They had
the A group of men go first (the fast guys), then the B men and finally the
women (all 3 of us). Apparently you just ride the course as many times as you
can until they tell you stop. (I made it through two laps and then I decided to
stop and take pictures.)
All in all, the clinic was a blast. I enjoy meeting
like-minded people and I got a good workout. I don’t think I’ll be taking up
cyclocross racing since none of my bikes are suitable for it and I can’t see adding
yet another bike to my fleet. If you tend to gauge your workouts by how much
pain you’re in the next day, then cyclocross is a great workout and I would
recommend giving it a try.
*Note: The post originally said 15% incline, but this was woefully underrated as you can see from the Strava data below:
