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We’re still digging out from a pile of 2017 Cyclocross Nationals content as we add to our ever-growing coverage. One of the more popular things we did throughout the week-long event was showcase the front line and tire choices of various title races, from the youngest to the oldest and many in between.

The team of Andrew Yee, Zachary Schuster and David Mable took their turns. Most videos made it to Facebook and Instagram, while a few just went straight to Twitter. We did quite a few, although we didn’t do every race due to our competing coverage and photography needs at the event (and sadly, at the singlespeed women’s race start, a technical issue).

Social media abstainers missed our videos entirely, and the Elite Women’s race start line video was only posted on Twitter. Today, for all who missed it, we’re featuring it today with a few notes. See Schuster take his turn to walk through the busy, cold and nervous front line before the start in the video above.

Amazingly, all top eight seeded racers finished in the top nine, with Katie Compton leading the way to her 13th title, with only ninth-seeded Arley Kemmerer crashing the front line’s stranglehold on the top eight places, pushing Sunny Gilbert to ninth.

From right to left (not in call-up order), in the video, you have:

  • Sunny Gilbert
  • Courtenay McFadden
  • Rebecca Fahringer
  • Amanda Miller
  • Kaitlin Antonneau
  • Katie Compton
  • Elle Anderson
  • Crystal Anthony

And if you’re on a small screen, low res playback or simply don’t want to pause and zoom, if our frozen eyes and memory correctly back up what we’re seeing, the racers made the following tire choices, tubular unless noted otherwise:

  • Clement PDX
  • Clement PDX
  • IRC Serac Mud (tubeless)
  • Clement BOS
  • Challenge Baby Limus
  • Clement PDX
  • Challenge Limus
  • Clement PDX

A few notes:

  • While there were four PDX front tires in that line-up (the most popular tire of the week), Compton is the only one to orient her tire with the “arrows” pointing backwards. Compton’s husband Mark Legg-Compton testifies that the PDX does better on off-cambers in that orientation.
  • While we would have loved to have captured front and rear tire choices in our video, most racers selected the same front and rear tires. One notable exception was Katie Compton, who went with a Clement BOS out back. Coincidentally or not, we’ve said for years that we prefer the PDX as a front tire, and were impressed with the BOS’ driving traction out back, and this combination appears to have worked well for the 13-time National Champion.
  • Fahringer paired the wide NoTubes Valor carbon rim with the ultra-narrow, very open IRC tubeless Serac Mud tire Mical Dyck used to race Worlds in Zolder. The Valor/IRC combo is the same combo the NoTubes team has done all season and fits within the 33mm UCI tire width limit.
  • While some racers went to the pits, Compton did not and finished on the same bike and same tire combination.

Stay tuned for continued coverage from the 2017 Cyclocross National Championships.