Cyclocross huh?

“…cyclocross huh, Utah has enough things to do, you don't have to make things up.” This is what my brother-in-law said when I told him about cyclocross. You see, my wife and I are pretty active people and can be pretty random in what we do and say. My wife had been a bobsled pilot for America Samoa at one point and we tend to choose interesting paths to walk, so it may appear to some people that we’re somewhat strange in the careers and activities we choose to do.

After I had convinced my brother-in-law that I had not created some new, overly-difficult, sport, but had actually joined up with a sport that had a 100 year history, he seemed somewhat interested. He’s not really one to question someone’s choices as he spent a few years of his life following the Grateful Dead and Phish around the country. I get odd looks in the Fall and Winter whenever someone asks me what I’m doing that weekend and I tell them I’m riding in a bike race. I get an even stranger look when I have to explain to them exactly what cyclocross is.

I’m not exactly sure what made me want to start racing cyclocross or even how I first learned about it. I’m a curious person by nature, Google and I are best friends because anything I think of or hear about I check on Google and catalogue in my brain. I’ve been mountain biking for a number of years and a few years ago I realized I kept reading references to cyclocross and I always assumed it was some type of mountain bike race, probably because I read about it on MTB websites or magazines. At some point I realized that I should probably find out what this “cyclocross” was since I kept reading references to it and didn’t want to be left in the dark. What I read amazed me. This sounded like the oddest sport in the world. At first I thought it sounded pretty stupid. For one thing it was done on what appeared to be modified road bikes. I’m an admitted adrenaline junky so endurance sports don’t really interest me.

Road cycling just looked tedious and boring. Riding a road bike off road seemed like using the wrong tool for the job, like using a hack saw to cut down a tree, yeah you can do it, but there are much better ways to get the job done. But, being the curious person I was I kept reading and learning. I watched some YouTube videos and

looked at some pictures and before I knew it I was greatly intrigued. There happened to be one more race left in the Utah Cyclocross series that year and so I informed my wife that I’d be driving to Ogden to watch the race that Saturday. Being a triathlete and a cyclist she thought it sounded fun so she sent me on my way. I got to the race course which was covered by 6 inches of fresh snow and proceeded to watch a group of guys gut it out for 45 minutes through snow that quickly turned to thick mud. When they got done they all had a thick coat of mud on their faces. This cyclocross stuff looked really hard but I knew I just had to try it the next year.

Several years later and my wife, I’m sure, gets sick of hearing me talk nonstop about ‘cross. Luckily for me, we have a compromise, of sorts, worked out. She gets most of the rest of the year for her sports. Most of Winter is spent snowshoeing and triathlon base training, Spring is triathlon base training and races, and Summer is Triathlon races. Fall is all mine… at least for now, until she learns how awesome cyclocross is and wants to do it herself.

Embrocation - The Burn, The Love

No one will dispute that cyclocross is a unique sport. It's a cycling sport that has cyclists riding road bikes off road and if that's not enough you've got to periodically get off your bike to jump over barriers and run up hills that are too steep to ride. Outside of Triathlon, it's the only cycling sport that requires some running.

Another aspect of cyclocross that is relatively unique is embrocation. Sure, it gets used by roadies when the weather turns cold but how long into Fall do they ride anyway? Embrocation is almost celebrated in cyclocross. You're standing at the start line and you smell the pungent smell, spicy, aromatic, and you see the shaved legs glistening in the morning sun. It's great to be alive. The sight and smell of embrocation often has a place in a new racers description of their first races.

Embrocation is usually an oil, though sometimes a lotion, that delivers, among other herbs, capsaicin to the skin. Capsaicin is the chemical in hot peppers that makes them spicy. The same feeling you get on your tongue is now on your legs and it feels great. At least it feels great until you get home for your after race shower and forget to clean it off before the hot water amplifies the heat on your legs to a scorching level.

A lot of cyclists, including mountain bikers, roadies, 'crossers, triathletes, etc, like shaving their legs. Along with providing a real, or perceived, increase in speed and performance they also like that it shows off their well toned legs and makes them feel strong. I am not one of those people. I reluctantly shave my legs several days before the first 'cross race and then each Thursday thereafter so that they're ready for embrocation on Saturday.

Trust me you don't want to shave on Friday night or Saturday morning then rub embrocation into unseen nicks and cuts, owwwww! After shaving, my legs feel exposed, cold and weird. I really only do it so that the embrocation doesn't turn into a big goopy mess, clinging to my leg hairs.

There are a couple of embrocation products I use. For mellow fall rides I use a lotion type that doesn't have much capsaicin and just sort of wakes up my legs. But, for 'cross races in the cold and rain nothing beats the Mad Alchemy - Medium, except maybe the Hot, but the Medium gets so hot just driving in the car I'm scared to try the Hot. I go in the bathroom for the manly ritual of rubbing spicy oil onto my shaved legs about half an hour before I leave for the race. It seems to add an exclamation point to the excitement of the day. Sort of like, the chill in the air on a Fall day at a football game...or a cyclocross race.

I'm often a little worried about how hot my legs get in the car and try to aim the heater vents at my body core instead of my legs, but once I'm in the middle of a cold and rainy, or snowy, race I'm quite happy my legs have their protective, warm, oily coating. Rain, mud, snow, would all start to sap energy from my legs and make me cold otherwise but with the embrocation on it all just beads up and slides off, preparing the way for a solid mid-pack, C class finish.

Fall Is Where It's At

Fall has become my favorite time of year. I used to be a huge fan of summer. It had everything that was good and lacked some of the bad things, namely school. It was three blissful months of fishing on the river, riding my bikes off of dirt jumps with my friends and watching taped episodes of Saturday Night Live, the good years, with Mike Meyers, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and co.

I held to my love of summer idea well into my adult years, then I realized one day that summer didn’t give me much benefit beyond extra daylight, I still had to work all day, so I decided to consider other seasons. I’d always been fond of Spring as it signaled the end of Winter. It's been forever since I had time and money for skiing so Winter gets pretty old by the end of January. Spring, still was too cold, what with the Lion-ish March winds, and all those April showers.

One day, mountain biking on a crisp Fall Saturday morning it hit me, I love Fall. I added it up, cooler temperatures, check, full sports schedule on TV, check, and the overwhelming reason to love Fall is Cyclocross.

At times the thoughts of Cyclocross are so full in my mind that I begin to smell embrocation, then quickly worry that the kids must have gotten into the embrocation. A quick check revealed that they were safe from stinging their eyes with the potent oils of Fall bike racing.

Last year was my first real year for Cyclocross and to make sure I was properly initiated mother nature sent a drizzly rain storm on Saturday morning, making the ‘cross course nice and muddy. I was in love.

I was rather late to the race, didn’t have time to warm up my muscles then quickly wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. It was cold and rainy, I hadn’t done much training, and I had entered a bike race. You see I’ve never been competitive, in high school I watched my friends compete in sports and the rough and tumble, highly competitive, singing competitions, but except for some church basketball had never really had the competitor fires burning in me. Now here I was, early 30’s and it was so cold I couldn’t bring myself to take my hoody off(a big cycling fashion no no) to freeze in the rain. So I rode down the hill to the start line, put myself in the back of the pack and then proceeded to get left in the dust by the pack of 50 newbie racers. Once I got up the hill (I hate hills) and caught my breath, I started to have some fun. The downhills were great, sliding around in the mud was fun. I didn’t even mind that I was getting passed by girls on the hills. I was quite glad to get lapped at the end of the second to last lap. The thing about cyclocross is, if you get lapped, you’re done. Though it’s a tad demoralizing, if you’re slow enough that you’ve gotten lapped you’re usually happy to be done.

Now here I sit with another cyclocross season about to begin. My heart beats faster with every day we get closer to October. I realize I didn’t come close to doing any of the training I was going to do all year and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than get muddy on my bike. Hopefully I don’t get lapped this year…sandbaggers.