opinions from the community and our “staff”
I’m almost done with road season for the year, thankfully, so it’s time to get cyclocross-specific. Between having a coach, having a new ’cross bike and having a pit bike being built up as I write this, I’m feeling pretty darn pro, and pretty darn prepared for the season.
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.
Well, it’s finally happened! It was inevitable although it took quite a while! I’ve been completely transformed from a died in the wool roadie to an irrevocably addicted off road rider. I no longer crave hours of asphalt, instead I wake up in the morning thinking about single track climbs and rhythmic swooping descents.
It’s been a few weeks since Rumors and Rumblings, but things have been going on in the rumor mills around the ’cross world. There are races going on, ’cross racers showing their mettle and other ’crossers building their form day by day. So, where are things?
Death Before DNF (“Did Not Finish,” for those of you who’ve never been faced with the concept of dropping out of a race) may be a bit extreme for a title, but when I was falling off the back of a race on Sunday, I contemplated titling this column “Know When To Hold ‘Em and Know When To Fold ‘Em.” Not only is that an excruciatingly long title, it’s also total crap in cycling.
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.
Summer has just begun and the road and mountain bike seasons are in full swing, but for those of us dedicated to cyclocross, the offseason is ending and training programs for the fall are coming together as the cyclocross bike is tuned up. Admittedly, my cyclocross bike never gets a rest and I’m always looking to tweak it to gain performance. In order to gain more performance, should I get a pair of carbon wheels, new tires, a sealed cable set, ceramic bearing bottom bracket? I hope that by reading Cyclocross Magazine, you will gain some insight to where your hard earned dollars should go.
For the past month and a half, I have lived and breathed cyclocross, as I took over as online editor for Cyclocross Magazine. And let me tell you, it is an extremely glamorous lifestyle.
Working in your pajamas is glamorous, right?
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.
It’s sometimes hard for me to get my head around this fact but, I’ve been racing cyclocross for over 30 years! That statement has me sitting at my keyboard shaking my head and laughing at myself. What is the world keeps me coming back? My last column explored the question of motivation. Here’s the next one: After doing cross for so long, what have I learned about how to get ready for the season? There are a few things that I’ve recently added to my list, and then there’s the processes that I’ve followed for years just to make sure I’m ready the first time I step off the bike and shoulder it over that first set of barriers.
We wanted to bring you some of the latest news from the cyclocross front, as road season for ‘crossers has kicked into high gear lately. With Luke Keough dominating the USA Crits series, Team Mountain Khakis, managed by Adam Myerson, is ramping up their season. However, the Keoughs aren’t the only cross racers in the series. Kathy Sherwin wins the Utah State Championship race. Bart Wellens had a super-long solo escape in the Belgian road championship that lotsa folks were talking about. Arnaud Jouffroy just won a mountain bike race, what will this mean for his ‘cross season? Nature Valley is over, how did the many crossers fare? And of course, the Tour De France starts tomorrow, which crossers will be lining up? NBC Tour de France All Access Discount Code?
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?
You typically do not think about college during the summer. Just as you do not think about cyclocross in the summer. However, if you are reading this article then chances are you are hooked. Just as I am hooked. My name is James McCabe and I am a junior student at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I am also the president of the Cycling Club at Wake. Prior to my involved with the club my freshmen year, the club was just a bunch of road bikers with Australian accents. (Well, that was just one rider, but that is beside the point.) I have taken the Cycling Club from a bunch of disorganized roadies to one of the stronger cyclocross teams in the Atlantic Collegiate Cycling Conference (ACCC).
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.
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.
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.
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.
byMolly Hurford If you see me at a cyclocross race, road race or triathlon, the odds are good that you’ve noticed the big burly guy …
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, …
Weeknight racing, long weekend road and mountain bike rides, maybe even a mountain bike race or a road race: these are all the little things we try and do to get our “cyclocross fix,” but it’s not the same. There is no substitute for the gasping breaths, the burning legs, the cross-eyed attempts at clearing the sand pit or the barriers. But we try to capture the feeling with our substitute races and by seeing what is happening in the world of pro cyclocross racers.
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.
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, I’ll be giving you a little preview of what’s in store for the week, and letting 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!
It was just last year when I wrote that short-track mountain bike racing was the key to preparing for the upcoming ’cross season. Not racing the road, I still wanted to keep that edge that only real racing can give you. So, I turned to the C.U. Cycling Short Track Series. The fit seemed perfect -short, intense races that mimicked the effort and style of cyclocross racing. Because they were short, they allowed for more training on race days. I’ve added something else. Something even more intense and painful in it’s own way. Endurance racing.
Summer heat is rolling through the country as both the everyday ’cross racer and the pro line up on the weekends and weeknights to build a little bit of extra fitness. September is just around the corner and will be here before you know it. So as we get closer, what are the pro crossers up to?
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.
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, I’ll be giving you a little preview of what’s in store for the week, and letting 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.
As the Giro d’Italia wraps up this weekend and the Tour of California wrapped up on Sunday you would think that the Pro Cyclocross news would be slowing down, but think again. Lars Boom has re-upped with Rabobank. The Tour of Belgium, a cross racer’s off-season paradise? Kevin Eeckhout of Sunweb-Revor retires at the ripe old age of 21. Amy Dombroski and Katie Compton head overseas for a little pre-season European dirt. Georgia Gould, Ms. Consistency? Todd Wells, best American on the dirt. In this week’s Working Man’s Edition we look back to Spencer Paxson, Jake Wells and head to a master’s working man Peter Webber.
Cyclocross Magazine’s print subscribers have long enjoyed our comprehensive product reviews, especially our in-depth, objective bike reviews and tests. Issue 12, mailing now, features reviews of the Cannondale Super X, the All City Nature Boy and the Fuji Altamira with two full pages dedicated to each bike, with real-world riding and racing and as always, no advertorial.
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!