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Regarding ultra-muddy courses....
Only to be expected after this much rain but I've read a few comments (on the Welsh FB page) saying that it's part of CX and if the pros do it in Belgium then we should expect to do it.
What do people think about the current crop of courses which seem to be muddy, grassy fields with no places for mud to clear? Is this what people want from a course - a war of attrition against the course - or more mixed terrain where you can concentrate on actual racing, not surviving?
(Thankfully it's sandy, well drained Pembrey this week. 😀 )
That Pembrey courtrooms ace, hard pack.sand some steps shame I decided not to come home! I am all for mud and muddy courses but not these horrible field blogs where grass churns up and locks into your rear mech! I spend most of the time stressing I'm going to rip the rear mech off! For me courses are about technical aspects, hard, fun! Shame we don't have more sand pits 😉
It's part of CX, but then the pros change bikes every lap when the mud is up.Only to be expected after this much rain but I've read a few comments (on the Welsh FB page) saying that it's part of CX and if the pros do it in Belgium then we should expect to do it.What do people think about the current crop of courses which seem to be muddy, grassy fields with no places for mud to clear? Is this what people want from a course - a war of attrition against the course - or more mixed terrain where you can concentrate on actual racing, not surviving?
If you need a second bike to finish the race then I can't really be arsed with that at this point in time. Seems excessive if you're middle of the pack. Maybe it's a normal expectation if you're good, but I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.
Don't actually have a second CX bike in any case, although I could always pitch up with the anthem I suppose. Do people do that, bring an emergency MTB? Think I'd be stressed about someone riding off with it from the pits.
. Do people do that, bring an emergency MTB? Think I'd be stressed about someone riding off with it from the pits.
Yes, people do that. I used to many years ago until I bent the rear mech hanger on my Paul Milnes steel frame, jumped on my MTB and bent the hanger on that as well. Two frames wrecked in one race. Far too expensive to risk doing it again.
Plenty of people using mtbs as 2nd bikes in the London League. I keep meaning to rebuild my old Kite, but the new disc proto has been good so far (although I did lose the chain in the last 200m on Sunday & had to sprint!)
Yarp plenty having 2 bikes in Central league. I am one, although last weekend I had a spare pit bike (which isn't great) but no pit crew to clean so didn't swap, as I didn't want to ride my old heavy canti bike v expensive carbon Focus! Pits are genera safe as in the middle of the course and usually lots of people around.
Racing the Nationals and hoping to borrow a better pit bike off a mate.
Yarp plenty having 2 bikes in Central league. I am one, although last weekend I had a spare pit bike (which isn't great) but no pit crew to clean so didn't swap, as I didn't want to ride my old heavy canti bike v expensive carbon Focus! Pits are genera safe as in the middle of the course and usually lots of people around.
Racing the Nationals and hoping to borrow a better pit bike off a mate.
Jon - I see the Welsh league is out of 7 still, not 6 as suggested 🙁 will have to make Pembrey count! Though slightly concerned it will be cancelled again as I saw 50mph winds forecast. Fingers crossed it doesn't get any worse
I enjoyed the two muddy races I did - Carmarthen and m.m. - though the pics of last week looked a bit o.t.t. A mate said they ran half the race. At least at Carmarthenshire was a bit of concrete to clear the tyres.
Gutted I missed Newtown and gilwern, they looked really good fun nice to mix in the singletrack
Caerphilly I think is always like that! I did it last year and a lot of it was running but that's the joy of CX racing. Just look at some of the Belgian races Kokslidje or Spa last week, long sections of running with the bike!
Do you on my have 7 rounds in Welsh league? Central has 14 and 9 count. I have managed to race 10 or will do by end of season.
Yeah there have been 11 rounds (originally 12 till Pembrey got cancelled a few weeks ago) and you need to do 7. I've done 6 so far, missed 2 from having other things on, 1 from laziness in not wanting to drive to Newtown, 1 from injury. At least with Pembrey I'll have raced enough to get a plAcing which was my original aim for the season having not raced cx before. Thing is having not raced since first Nov I'm woefully unfit so will do dismally at Pembrey.
Jon - I see the Welsh league is out of 7 still, not 6 as suggested will have to make Pembrey count!
Michael Tarling mentioned it in the FB thread about Pembrey v1 being cancelled but nobody confirmed it. (I don't pay much attention to the actual website because nobody ever updates it.)
Yeah, I saw that, but looking at the overall standings after Caerphilly it is still best of 7.
Thats me stuffed then.
Punctured shortly after first lap at Pembrey, no spare wheels, tube etc. Gutted, rubbish way to end my first season, enjoying the course too though I wasn't going well anyway. At least I have love-crossed entered to get excited for, then the six nations and then it's xc season 🙂
Already thinking of strategies for next year. Was a pinch flat, been running standard tubes at 25psi all season so I guess I was asking for it! Didn't feel like I clunked anything though. So, run higher pressures and sacrifice performance? No chance! Seems either a spare set of wheels or going tubeless.
People with disks - do you bother with a spare wheelset? Avid Mechanical discs and qr's need fettking every time you takes wheels off. Half think it would be quick to actually carry a spare tube.
Anyone running cx wheels tubeless? I see there is a stans cx rim. Do they go well? As easy as mtb to run tubeless?
A few of my team mates have run tubeless all season, but they tend to run more than 25 psi.
Keep your eye out for some cheap second hand wheels with tubs...?
Courses like yesterday are always going to be a compromise with tyre pressure...what's best for 35kph down a (thankfully pretty smooth) fireroad isn't going to be best for riding down a sand dune....I got a rear flat too (from a safety pin!) but managed to ride it back to the pits to pick the spare bike up - the bike actually handled pretty well in the sand with zero psi in the rear tyre 😆
I nearly always spend some time in practice tweaking tyre pressure - start a bit too high and let them down as low as you dare basically.
Anyone running cx wheels tubeless? I see there is a stans cx rim. Do they go well? As easy as mtb to run tubeless?
Clement PDX on Crests. Went on easy, feel great and stupidly light. Intention was to have them as pit wheels, but they give better grip than my current tubs over the past few courses that I've just used them. Use them at 35psi, could go a good bit lower.
Flatted one last weekend, think it was whacking a hidden rock, no sealant in it when I took it off, might have been why.
Cheers, I'm using pdx at the minute too, so tubeless might be the way to go. Won't worry till next summer so will start keeping an eye on second hand wheels in a few months.
@ferrals I remembered to take my pressure gauge yesterday so was able to set the pressures to what I wanted rather than by thumb feel. 20psi front and 24psi rear, but I'm 84kg kitted up. That was on file treads and it was clanking the rim in a few places but ok otherwise. I've raced courses where it was better to run a higher pressure purely to avoid punctures and it's paid off. I've a set of mud tubs that have been used all year apart from the couple of races where the spare wheels with file tread tubs have been used. I raced Gorseinon on a file tread rear after shedding a mud tub in practice. Better than not racing at all.
I can see the benefit of having a spare bike; I had the singlespeed MTB at Caerphilly purely to try and avoid tearing a rear derailleur off from mud and grass. It wouldn't have been any good at Pembrey, gearing would've been well off. Spare bike doesn't have to be another CX bike.
I've thought in the past about using my mtb as a spare bike, but my cx bike is just a bike, I [i]love[/i] my mtb, and don't trust wrecking it!
Oh you poor Welsh league souls it is all over! I still have another 4 rounds here (Although I can only do 3) keeps going until 23rd Jan!
Come up and do Milton Keynes on 16th?? Central league followed by National Trophy on the Sunday?
OR 24th Jan Abingdon at Dalton Barracks, depending on where in Wales you live!
28th is next one for me! At the moment I'm on clinchers but crashtestmonkey is building me up some tubeless for Christmas pressie I believe! I ask him about tyre pressure and he sorts it for me 😉
Just entered Lovecrossed, although had second thoughts when I realised it would be £19 for 40 minutes of racing... (Grumpy old man moment - cross used to be cheap!) Why am I seen as too old to have a whole 50 minutes like the whippersnappers? 🙄
Another grumpy old man moment for BC - find the event on their website, click 'Enter', click 'Log In', takes you back to a main menu to start the process again. Why am I paying a £1 admin fee for this crap?
Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed Pembrey. It was nice to get away from the grassy field cross races although some of the front-runners were complaining about how hard it was to overtake through the dunes because of the narrowness of the course.
LOL @ Idle John . .crashtestmonkey had the same gripe! What annoyed me waste I entered remaining 3 central leagues, National champs and love crossed it charged me £1 admin fee PER event. I mean WTF!!!!! Hey it'll be a blast either getting to watch World Champs with some like minded people afterwards!!
Hey it'll be a blast either getting to watch World Champs with some like minded people afterwards!!
What I was thinking!
Yeah love crossed should be great!
I enjoyed the practise and the lap I did before flatting at Pembrey. Re. the dune section, it was actually all double track so if you were feeling aggressive or if it was someone slow in front I don't think overtaking should have been an issue. I found the start more of an issue, being relatively narrow and straight for so long but that was as much me not being in a competitive frame of mind and being slightly phased by the bunch.
There is the potential for some amazing courses at Pembrey, if you started at cafe field you could have a bit of open grass field stuff, some sandy single track, some mud, and a sand run up from hell all in one course
some of the front-runners were complaining about how hard it was to overtake through the dunes because of the narrowness of the course.
Not so much narrowness all the way round, but a couple of critical bottlenecks with big differences in speed between frontrunners (not sure that term applied to me this week) - that little rise in the woods at the very far end of the course, and the turn at the 'sea view' at the top of the dune descent spring to mind. This made for a lot of quite, ahem, assertive calling for passes from a long way back, and basically expecting folk who were walking up sections to come to a complete stop and step off the course to allow faster riders through. This doesn't seem fair on back markers really, they have their own race going on.
Not really a problem with the course per se, but a problem with having 170 riders on a course that the leaders were covering in just over 5 minutes. I've been coming down all year on the side of 'passing in traffic is skill you need to learn' and keeping one big race in the Welsh League, but I think Pembrey may have me leaning towards splitting categories into different races/staggered starts. Rumour is that some changes are affoot for next season. Time will tell.
meone slow in front I don't think overtaking should have been an issue
The problem was that there were sections where slower riders would stall unexpectedly or switch sides, often completely unintentionally.
I got stuck behind plenty of people and I'm slow - it must have been frustrating for the faster guys. However they don't always help themselves - I stalled one V40 unintentionally when he came up fast behind me. (A bit of swearing, with me shouting that if he had told me he was there I would have stayed on one side. All four riders behind him politely told me they were passing! 🙂 V40 and I apologised at the finish.) And having someone shout 'rider' or 'rider up' is no use at all. Basically it's impossible to keep looking over your shoulder for the whole race. But other than splitting races, or pulling riders out when they are lapped, that's what we've got and everyone needs to deal with it.
Oh look the age old debate that Welsh CX league has got so big for it's own good! I think they will split some of it up next year and Liz Slater as already alluded to that in a recent post.
It's a really difficult one to balance! For years I've raced and MTB as as a back marker you don't want to get in the way of the faster people but you are having your own race too. People need to shout loudly, clearly and give you notice! "Rider passing on your right". as the faster rider it is YOUR responsibility to find a SAFE line through. I have had many an aggressive, abusive male rider over taking me which has resulted in swearing and shouting!
I am now in Central league where women get their own start and I'm at the front end of the field and over taking the back markers of the V50 men! Now I'm the one going for the over takes. However I remember being those back markers, be clear and assertive! I have shouted assertively at riders (not aggressively) and made it obvious where I am going. Only once or twice have their been a few minor issues, them taking a poor line choice as I went past or me thinking there was more space than there was! invariably we've apologised to each other and sorted it out.
That's what I found frustrating about Brecon. I was getting shouted at aggressively by males .. but actually I was at that place racing for a podium position! I have no doubt in that situation I was fighting for a higher placing than them but hey some people don't think like that!
Also most stretches of course are 3m wide and shouldn't be a problem!
as the faster rider it is YOUR responsibility to find a SAFE line through.
According to the rules it is the slower, lapped rider who must give way. Not something I knew before last season! And not a rule that most adhere to, preferring to pass responsibly when there is space.
Thinking a little more about that, maybe I should only give way when being lapped by someone in my own V40 race, so the Seniors can wait! 😆
Well in the rules yes it does state that 11.8 "When being lapped, it is the responsibility of the lapped rider to surrender the racing line".
However for me it is mainly if they shout and make you aware! As mentioned above I'm not looking over my shoulder all the time to see where the faster riders are.
good luck identifying who is V40 v Seniors over your shoulder!
Well Christmas is here, which means tomorrow is boxing day and the cross at Kenilworth, anyone else riding?
Central Cx is 28th but a list of rules so not sure council will allow it back there 😉
Nothing serious, but got a Christmas themed fancy dress cx race on the 28th at Melin Mynach, reckon it will be a mud fest, especially wearing a Santa costume
Yeah,
Fun at Kenilworth today!
A couple of crashes put me on the backfoot!
Lived to survive another day with bike and body intact!
Had a bit of fun nether the less!
Thanks,
Max
It was tricky out there today at Kenilworth, was pleased when the bell rang, it had been plenty hilly enough on a singlespeed. Managed to not drop it, but had a few close encounters with bushes.
Anyone been able to watch the replay of heusden-zolder? Ucichannel on YouTube said not available in this country, never had that before with ucichannel and all the other races are fine.
That race only was on Eurosport live which apparently affected the uci channel rights.
If you search for Zolder in the last 48hrs on YouTube there are a couple of full replays in Flemish. Interesting little race. Cyclingfans is good for cross coverage
Cheers, think I'm going to have start learning Flemish!
Daughter raced the Rockingham Central League race today, ripped rear mech hanger off after less than a lap!
Smooth course at Macclesfield today - Plenty of twisty, off-camber turns with no serious mud to speak of.
Was fine for a couple of laps but the weeks aleing soon caught up with me - had me IPA legs on. Normally feel better as the race goes on, felt progessively worse today. Was nice to get out for a blast in any case.
Only a 'fun' 1/2hr fancy dress race but my legs were caning today too - way too much gluttony the last week, not helped by not warming up at all. So good to be ploughing through mud though 🙂
Yes Central league course yesterday was sponsored by Shimano! We went with 3 bikes. Crashtestmonkey ripped his rear mech off after 1 1/2 laps! Off I went cracking start . . 1 1/2 lapis went for a bike change as I physically couldn't turn the pedals due to the clogging got to the gravel corner of death ripped rear mech off!! Ran 3/4 of a lap.back to pits . . Boy does my spare bike (Dolan) weigh a ton!! Swapped back to Focus felt quick, legs were good, was gaining on woman in front of me! Bike started getting jammed again! Stopped attempted to clear it . . Then corner of doom tried to avoid the gravel but no ****ing rear mech went! Expensive day out! Long drive for 3 bikes to break!!! 18 women started 11 finished I came 11 th so pleased that I continue with my run of never having DNF'd in a race! But guessing that result be the one I ditch!
Shame as I wanted a really good race before the Nationals in 2 weeks time! Last 3 races haven't been so good!
I'm up in Birmingham for christmas so I made a guest appearance at Central League yesterday. Not wanting to bring a car load of stuff away for christmas, I'd got one bike and no spare wheels. I knew after a practice lap I'd be lucky if my bike lasted the race. It didn't!
I made it to about 30 mins before any major drivetrain problems, then the rear mech started playing up - I stopped to clear mud from it with a tyre lever I'd pocketed for this purpose (!) but couldn't do much with it. From then on it was just a case of trying to make it round. My hanger went bang after about 50 mins and about 200m from the finish line. I carried to the finish and stood a few metres from the line (with two other riders in the same predicament) waiting for the leader to come through and get the chequered flag, and then crossed the line on foot. Two laps down but no way I was ending my season with a DNF!!!
A shame it was such an attritional race because the course was great - a nice mix of grunt on the open sections and lots of quite technical stuff (not my forte admittedly) in the woods.
That's my season over now, I'm taking a couple of weeks off the bike before starting to think about the XC and road season!
I haven't got the grunt/power for long muddy grassy drags but I enjoyed the techy bits, and after a typically poor start (see grunt comment) I was picking my way through the field until the hanger and mech went pop. It was a really thick clay mud- cleaning MC's bike in the pits by hand (no washer, and hadn't intended to be in pits!) it was pulling off the tyre sidewall in foot long strips!
More annoying for me is Central League counts your best 9 results from up to 14 races. With work I can only just race 9 (and that includes racing then going straight to a late shift), so 1 DNF means I will have at most 8 scored races. Which means when they tot up the league I'll finish lower than people who I've consistently beaten but who've managed to turn up to more rounds.
Anyone been able to watch the replay of heusden-zolder?
I follow Cyclocrossable, Roderic Kreunen and cyclocrossfan on youtube as between them they upload most of the televised Belgian cross.
Just had an email from British Cycling informing that Ripley Cyclocross on New Years day is cancelled.
Gutted was really looking forward to a SSCX race with other SSCXers, but no it's not happening, guess it's an extra horlicks for me tomorrow evening 🙁