Page rides and rerides the course until he is happy with his line selection. Photo from footage by In the Cross Hairs.
As we are gathering all of the great bike tech and photos from the 2015 Cyclocross National Championship in Austin, we came across a great short primer from In the Crosshairs on Jonathan Page and Jeremy Powers practicing their lines at Zilker Park.
Make no mistake, Bill Schieken of CXHairs.com, didn’t create this Your Moment of SVENNESS in order for riders to dial in their skills to tackle the exact features. For one thing, even if courses didn’t change, the conditions these riders faced, shown here on the Saturday before Nationals, are drastically different with each day. For another (and more obvious) reason, it may be a long time before Zilker Park sees the likes of a cyclocross race.
The true value here is watching the pros tackle the tough spots in a course. Front wheel slipping on an off-camber? Putting a foot down of bobbling a climb? As we saw last Monday, Page and Powers are the two best in the United States, but neither of them come to the course taking perfect lines from the get-go. Below is their practice rounds, uploaded to Vimeo from In the Crosshairs:
