The U.S. Cyclocross Nationals are an annual occasion for the country's cyclocross community to come together, race bikes and swap stories about the sport. For cyclocross tech fans, it is also a great opportunity to check out the myriad types of bikes and builds amateur athletes from across the country are riding.
So far this season, we have gotten the opportunity to gawk at a number of Elite riders' builds, including Wout van Aert's Felt FRDx, Tobin Ortenblad's Santa Cruz Stigmata and Caroline Mani's Van Dessel Full Tilt Boogie, among others. However, these athletes have access to the latest and greatest, while the majority of us are forced to take a more "run what ya brung" approach.
With Nationals racing less than a week away, we wanted to take this Throwback Thursday to look at some of the unique builds from the past nine years of Cyclocross Magazine's coverage of U.S. Cyclocross Nationals. When placed against the backdrop of our profile of Jeremy Powers' SRAM eTap-equipped Focus Mares, the profiles also provide a great opportunity to see how cyclocross bikes have and have not changed over the years.
We hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane.
For living in the now, check out our already-growing compilation of coverage of the 2018 U.S. Cyclocross Nationals in Reno.
Zachary Schuster and Andrew Yee contributed to this throwback.
Use the slider to see each bike profile.
Tanya Bettis’ Campy/SRAM 1x Orbea – 2016 (Asheville)
Tanya Bettis raced a mix-and-match Campy 1x setup on an Orbea Terra T105 at the 2016 USA Cyclocross National Championships. © Cyclocross Magazine
While Campagnolo has a history in cyclocross, its presence at the top level is presently non-existent. Even at the amateur level, there aren’t that many out there using the Italian brand’s components. Tanya Bettis managed to win the 45-49 Master Women’s title in 2016 using them, however. She didn’t love her SRAM setup, so she decided to install a Campagnolo system instead. Interestingly, she set up her Orbea Terra T105 with 10-speed Centaur shifters, which were already outdated by the time she won the title. She also kept the original SRAM S950 crank and stayed 1x with a RaceFace 38t narrow wide chainring.
See the full profile of Tanya Bettis’ 2016 Nationals-winning bike here.
