Cyclocross season is just round the corner and I wanted to share my tale of woe so it may inspire someone else to take it up.
2010 was the first year I picked up a cyclocross bike. I was just turned 30 and overweight. 5’8″ and 93kg. I agreed to ride the tour of Flanders sportive with a friend and thought I better get some winter miles in and a cheap cross bike filled the gap perfectly. So 2 weeks later I rolled to the start line of my local cross race, lycra stretched to breaking point and I waited – I waited like the 12 year old I was when I first raced a MTB. I was already hooked. The race itself was awful, hard fast and I struggled to stay with people I should be with and I struggled fend off the old and infirm right at the back. I loved it, the cut and thrust of proper elbow to elbow racing. I rode all that season through the long dark evenings and raced on Sundays and rediscovered what I loved about riding a bike. By the time I hit the Koppenberg I was 81kg and enjoying it again.
A few seasons pass and I move up the field and I beat people one week and they beat me the next, all good fun. Cyclocross at this point is a way of staying fit through the winter. Or so I think, now as the summers roll past I feel the urge to focus on September rather than March and start looking at carbon cross bikes more and more. I realise I’m becoming a ‘cross racer, and I like it.
That summer I race an XC race and I’m whipped – I think I roll in dead last, and it hits me square in the chest. All these years of racing coming last and ‘not caring’ about the performance had finally got to me. I sat with my wife and we decided that if I wanted to race I either had to do it properly or not at all. So I start riding, not like I had been, but properly and really racking up the mileage. Another cross season arrives, and all of a sudden i’m top10 rather than top25, Im now disappointed if i’m beaten by certain people, the races continue, i’m putting moves onto groups and getting shout ups to give me time gaps.
Its getting serious! Really serious, I find a coach and start using a power meter and focussing on ‘A’ and ‘B’ races. Results are now top5, and I’m mixing it in the group that would have lapped me only a couple of seasons before hand. That was last season.
Fast forward to now, 2weeks before the biggest race of my life and a week before my season kicks off. I have ridden all summer and worked hard for the last 12months on the bike. My focus has been a race just outside Boston MA called the GP of Gloucester and I have never been more excited about racing a bicycle.
22years ago I started a bike race that has lead me to a life of bike racing that I never imagined would make me so many friends and take me across the world. Just a few years ago, I got out of breath climbing the stairs and now I sit here 18kgs lighter. I’m not a talented bike rider, but I wanted to pretend to be one once in my life.
If you’ve got this far down, I salute you. And if I inspire you to try cyclocross once get it done, it might change your life too!
Posted 9 years ago
