Next Season

On Saturday, February 26th, The ACA hosted the 2011 "Cyclocross Promoters Meeting". Much more than a gathering of promotors to arm-wrestle for calendar dates for the next season, it generally is the "public" input for what teams, promotors, and (Gasp...), maybe even the lowly bike racer wants to see for the next season. As just one more hint of the growth and popularity of cyclocross, the small conference room reserved for the function was about half the size needed for the turnout. After squeezing people in close (I refused to cuddle up TOO close the Frites & Mayo guys... self preservation is important...), the meeting got underway with a round of introductions, along with people asked to answer the question "Colorado is producing WAY more National Champions than the rest of the country, What are we doing RIGHT here in Colorado to make that happen?"

Most of the answers to that question went from the predictable, things like living at altitude, the "culture" and history of racing in Colorado, and the like. More telling was the repeated mention of LOTS of HIGH Quality race events, on many types of terrain, and DEEP, Highly competitive fields. The lots of different races comment would become key later on when discussing options to "fix" the problem of too many racers. One very interesting point was that officials who have worked races in other parts of the country noted that Colorado is unique in getting 45 minute races for all groups. Apparently many other areas of the country have "fixed" the problem of lack of daylight & a lot of categories by giving most groups only 30 minute races.

In the "good problems to have" department, the ACA notes that for Colorado Cross, we are "victims of our own success". This really is only because of the perception that large fields and combined categories on the course at the same time are a "problem". While I can see that starting in the back of one of those 125 rider Beer-drinking-dads races can be an issue, and while the 45+ & Open Women have really outgrown their shotgun marriage, there could be a lot worse problems to be solved by a governing body.

Limiting on-course warm up seemed to be the single biggest positive change in increasing safety and decreasing "incidents" related to big fields. Any time you can keep 2 groups with vastly different skill & speed levels apart, that should be nothing but good. Problem already "fixed"? Course design was talked about a lot as a way to mitigate the issues of large & combined fields. "Longer" lap times (more than 6 minutes...) to spread riders and groups out along with more RIDEABLE width and limited bottlenecks on course to allow ample passing were seen as a way to mitigate the bad parts of the big groups. These would both help a lot, but may impact or make it more difficult to use some of the shorter and more "bottlenecked" classic courses, like Interlocken.

So, while all formal decisions will be made later on by the ACA Board of Directors, what changes were discussed, and what can your average rider look forward to next year?

Photo - Lisa Robinson

- "Split" or 2 day race schedules. There was a proposal to run ALL Colorado Cross Cup races on a bastardized version of the 2 day schedule used at States last year. While spreading out groups, it would also put each cup weekend on a single venue for both days, and limit a lot of riders ability to pick which or both days to race. Promotors hated it. No one wanted 2 days of work per race. This went down in flames. Look to ONLY see the 2 day schedule at States again. The discussion about a LOT of high quality races was instrumental in killing this off.

- Less Colorado Cup Races. 4 races plus states or so seems to be the target number. Finally going to limit the number of series races to WAY less than 50+ percent of events.

- States NOT in the bubble. OMG. End of the world as we know it. Alpha Bikes & Frites & Mayo Velo Club look to have states, likely on the Arapahoe Community Park Course. A great score, and I am CERTAIN those boys will have a real treat for us come late December. Do note that States is moving back a couple of weeks, to the week before Christmas. This move provoked by the move of Nationals to January. (You all have fun up there in Madison in January.... Me thinks I'll pass.)

- Call ups will likely be based off crossresults.com ranking points, at least for the Non-Cup races. More consistent enforcement of the grid & removing upgraded rides were also mentioned. ACA is giving access to the member & results database to crossresults.com, so ACA numbers will be the index, eliminating name conflicts. I for one think this will be a better approach than the disjointed effort of last year. The ACA heard the complaints that call ups were not very consistent, and are trying to address that.

- Chip timing. easier & faster scoring of big races. Even individual lap times will be available in the results database online. Geek out.

- Race day schedule. A "sub-committee" under the ACA Technical Committee was formed, and is tasked with "tuning" the existing one day race schedule & Group splits. NOT an easy task, with MANY "special interests" to serve, and limited time in a day. DO look for a Pre and Post Daylight savings time schedule. That will be looking to leverage the longer daylight hours early in the season to spread out the schedule a bit.

Photo - Lisa Robinson

Again, all this will trickle out as actual policy is implemented. Will have to watch carefully to see how it all comes together, but there sure could be worse problems to have for the sport in Colorado. Participation numbers were available that shows average riders per event is almost exactly flat on the road racing side since 2006. Yet in the same period, cross participation has almost doubled. The ACA sees that, and seems to be reacting well to it. A good thing to see. If you are curious, the Frites Guys posted a preliminary schedule on their blog.

Long way thru the rest of the winter, a long summer to pass, but It's been fun thinking cross for a few days. Should be an even better season ahead. Now if I can only find a sliver of fitness & speed to bring out to play next year.

Hope

Hope springs eternal.

For me, that means MAYBE I can really get healed up enough to get in some decent ski days yet this season. Did an easy tour up in Rocky Mountain National Park with my dear wife today. While I am slowly healing up, it turns out I am not anywhere near ready for a real ski day. While I did not set myself back in recovery, am just plain not ready.

Also managed to depress myself, after seeing the HUGE amount of snow that has been piling up while I've been doing nothing but PT and whining. There is more snow piled up on the Front Range than I've seen in many years, based on the road cuts on the Bear Lake Road. Course all this has happened since I managed to take myself out of ski mode. Time yet left in the ski season. All that hope is to get healthy enough to enjoy some of it. Well north of a foot was sitting there after the last "little" storm. Wah. more whining.

I WAS healthy enough to sit on on the ACA's Cyclocross Promotors meeting, held saturday in Golden. In yet one more indication of the growth of cross, the room turned out to be WAY too small for the number of people who turned up to talk about Cyclocross in February.

Much more than just hashing out the race calendar, much of the time was spent trying to understand the desires & direction for cross in Colorado, what is happening in Colorado racing to manufacture SO many National Champions, what "type" of races do both promotors and riders want to see, and how to handle the growth in rider numbers in a fair & reasonable manner.

Thankfully, some of what I see as the "less desirable" ideas did not seem to be gaining much traction, and there was frank discussion about some things that could be better for cross next year.

Outside of a VERY full calendar, running from Early September to the week before Christmas for states (Moved a couple of weeks later for more race weekends, and to better time with January Nationals...), Nothing completely decided so far (In the end, the ACA Board makes the decisions for real changes…), but Seems like most changes might be for the better.

More on my take of the discussion about cross in Colorado soon.

Broken

So when even a crappy "athlete" like myself gets hurt and can't do much, it's amazing how it affects much more of one's life than just the workouts. Not that I have any life changing injury, actually just the opposite. I have one of those silly and stupid injuries. Never seems like you even get a good story from many of the "old people" hurts you can get. Somehow, "there I was, in my kitchen..." just does not have a lot of storytelling impact.

So, I've managed to do some kind of bizarre damage to a couple of muscles in my hip of all places. Seems as if the "piriformis" and "tensor fasciae late" are not merely decorative in nature, and really do perform some anatomic function. When they are all screwed up, all sorts of normal activities can become non-functional.

Skiing? Out. Riding? Out. My weight training "program"? Out. After a couple of weeks of nothing but therapy, I am getting a bit batty, and getting grumpier every day. My plan for future dominance of the Colorado cyclocross fields thru a super-secret off-season weight program? Stopped before it got started. Getting some of the GREAT snow that has been dumping over the last 2 weeks in the nearby hills? I don't even want to think about that.

I am beginning to see an end to the "broken" period, but it sure seems that any kind of healing goes into complete slow motion in the 50+ year old world. Well, at least I can look forward to the "PT Stretch & Roll" workout twice a day for a little while longer. Whee.

OK, Ok, enough of the Crooked, broken old guy whining. I did have a pleasant surprise to find myself pictured in the last issue of Mountain Flyer Magazine. They did a real nice spread on the Ft. Collins USGP race, with a bunch of nice Eddie Clark Photos from that mud-bath.

While I would LOVE for it to have been a shot of me railing around in the mud in one of his typical, stunning action shots, it really captures what I do much better than race my bike. It's a great shot of me, beer in hand, mouth wide open, screaming at Katarina Nash to go catch KFC. There was even a second shot in the series of Pete Webber hammering uphill, and and race announcer, fellow mid-packer, and all around good guy Larry G.'s head leaning over the course tape. Oh, well, gotta take what fame you can get.

Rise of the 'Mericans?

The CX Worlds went down again this weekend. . Poor KFC missed the big prize again. Again. Are there curses in cycling? After seeing KFC absolutely DOMINATE all season (Again..) and not be able to pull together the ONE day she wants, you have to start thinking........

The American men are really starting to show promise in the "big leagues", with all the finishers staying on the lead lap, and in the top 1/2 of the field. Page and J Pow in the top 20. Staying on the lead lap may not sound that great, but after my personal experience in the 35+ and 45+ open races around here, and seeing the last place rider at worlds being listed a ** 7 ** laps down, it really is a great result.

The women are showing more depth, again all finishing on the lead lap, and in an AMAZING U-23 race,

all the up & coming USA guys stayed on that lead lap, and Danny Summerhill got into 13th. The U23 race was not the usual Euro cross race, all spread out. 10 guys in a tight bunch into the "Laatste Ronde". More fun to watch than the usual spread out laps of a euro race, good, tight racing. All in all a better showing for US cross than in many past years. Good on all the big boys & girls for their efforts. Cracking the euro-Belgium stranglehold is going to be a LONG and painful task.

Back in the local cross scene, we actually had a bike race in January. Kinda hard to tell, as more pople clicked into 303 Cycling's "should we have races in January" poll, than managed to make it to a race in the heart of the Boulder Beast. With "issues" getting up to ski that day, I went ahead with an experiment. How does a Cross race feel after 6 weeks of not really riding? With maybe 3 rides since States, I knew it would be "different" to go flog myself with NO riding.

The result of that experiment? well, it all hurts about the same, you just have one speed. a rather slow speed, and no real ability to actually "race" people. With a fun and reasonably technical course, I was able to get a good start, and hang in OK in the really small field. Based on the bike handling, or more like lack of bike handling, most of the other folks had not been riding either. Made for a fun slalom thru the falling, fallen, or generally frazzled middle of the field. Lots of frozen sand and a few bits of snow & ice to spice up the eastern half of the course made for probably the best course I've been on at Boulder Rez. With NO aspirations or notions of "racing" turned out to be a LOT of fun. One of those things about cross, the ability to be in the back & have a great time.

On a less fun & more personal note, after surviving a full season of Cross with no real injury, I managed to tear up some strange muscle in my hip, in my kitchen, 2 hours after that last "experimental" race. Keeping me off the skis, off the weight training, on the PT, and pretty much insane. Oh boy, below Zero temperatures, snow & a broken body. I guess winter is in full force. Why do the real injuries never have a good story to go with them? Always something stupid.

Wrap-up

Due to popular demand, I will delve into a post-season examination of the ups and downs of this recently ended, or maybe more appropriately, the soon to be ended Cyclocross season. Do remember you can still get all "hup-hup-ed" one more time this year, as there is one more Boulder Rez race coming up.

OK, OK, I know "popular demand" may be an overstatement, but for this particular blog-like operation, even ONE comment is definitely popular demand. Listen to the people, I say.

The Downs

Dry Weather

All right, this one was really all my fault. Yes, I was the one who bought a new set of wheels glued up with Tufo Cubus, JUST to have a set of mud tires after a couple of mud-baths last year. Didn't use them much this year. At least we had the New Belgium Cup. Was getting pretty sick of dust by then.

The Colorado Cross Cup

While probably a good start to a meaningful Colorado season series, and seemingly pretty successful at one of it's big goals of improving promotion "quality" in more races, This one just seemed to not be a big hit with the general racing populace. Scheduling was a bit strange, with many back to back cup races (2 cup races in one weekend), and almost as many races designated as Cup races as last year. I firmly do not believe that running Cup races after mid-December is going to go well, as I don't think the participation will justify the Cup status, just make the few people at the top of that points competition artificially extend their season.

Also the "Cup only" points for call-up was pretty much universally despised. Between most riders not knowing which races "counted" and riders finishing well in "NON-Cup" races never getting a call-up, it just brought more hard feelings than "buzz".

No Nationals for me

USAC making CX nationals available to only cat3 and up pushed me out of the party. Is it really the right thing to do? Yes, I fully agree that it was needed to decrease field sizes to manageable levels, and keep it fair for the actual jersey contenders, but I did not like it for 2 reasons. One, it was MASSIVELY cool to race there, and see how you faired against those who DID have actual shots at the Jersey. Two, it seems to be a turning point for a change in the "inclusiveness" of Cross. Getting too big for an "All-Comers" national championship race is a mixed bag in my mind. A qualifying points system is the only real solution, but with the USAC/ACA/OBRA mess, looks unlikely.

Oh, and I would point out that THIS crappy cat-4 did NOT get lapped last year......

The Ups

The continuing growth of participation in Cross

125 Rider fields in the Beer-Drinking-Dads race is a great thing. 45-50 every week in the 45+ is great. While I don't see a reasonable set of changes to bring those 35+ cat 4 fields down to a more competitive and reasonable size, there sure could be worse problems to have for a sport. The "standard" race day schedule was pretty much destroyed by the HUGE influx of old guys in all the Masters categories, and will have to lead to some creative thinking for next year. Sharing a course for multiple groups is quickly becoming unworkable. Not enough daylight to spread out the demand and add groups. Don't be surprised to see a "2 races on one day" setup coming soon, IF the ACA can find enough officials to staff 2 venues every weekend.

The other upside of the rapid growth in cross vs. the stagnant numbers for road racing is that the ACA, and maybe even the USAC are seeing cross as a stand alone discipline now, not just a sideshow. Cross will now be getting more of the governing body resources and attention that it deserves.

Great new race venues

Westminster City Park - Brian at Boulder Racing has a classic in the making here. While FAR from a course I could do well on, it's a winner. My vote for "most desired to stick around" course.

Flatiron Crossing Mall - The move out of (but near to..) the bubble was a great move by Chris at DBC Events. While you could hear the whining from the drum circles and car-less hippies of the Republic as far away as the mall the race happened at, the venue is pure genius. I can't think of a better place to expose non bike geeks to what is really the only viable cycling discipline for non-riding spectators. Not only that, it was a crazy hard and crazy fun course to race on.

Honorable mention - Again to Chris & DBC for the Aspen Lodge race. Again, crazy hard, but finally getting there on the technical side. A blast to race on.

All in all, the quality of courses was way up pretty much across the board this year, just another good sign for the sport.

USGP and NACT events in Colorado

Getting a stop on BOTH national Cross Series tours in Colorado was a coup. Boulder Cup was a great show. The New Belgium Cup in Ft. Collins was a great race, but missed the mark as an "event" in a lot of ways. The venue out in the middle of a random field with no parking, Car-dealership ambiance, and a frightening lack of pre-race publicity & information flow dulled an otherwise great event. These issues led to about zero "appeal" for the non bike geeks out there. The venue was really sub-par for a National Calibre event. While the course was a good one to race on, I'm hoping they can find a more appropriate venue for next year (if they retain the USGP stop...)

And now, My special awards for the year.

The "Oh Yea" award

To the ACA for the timely passing of a "new" rule allowing them to honor other governing bodies suspensions and other sanctions. This could also be the "Chuck Coyle Memorial - Oh Yea" rule. At least it's on the books now.

The "Crawling out from under a Rock" award

Goes to The UCI & USAC for their intrepid efforts to keep all of the cyclocross community safe from the danger and pure evil that is lurking in any tire wider than 33 millimeters. I, for one, am glad that the old frog-dudes who live under their slimy rocks at the UCI come out into the light and continue to make such declarations. Without them, the anarchy that letting someone with a 2mm wider tire loose on the unsuspecting populace of the world would cause is just beyond comprehension. You have to give credit to the folks down in the Springs for them helping out on this with the "no one can ride these at Nationals oh wait now that you threw a few hundred dollars and hours of re-gluing time at your new narrow tires we want to help you save money so go ahead and use them if you are in one of those categories we don't care about anyway unless you are an elite where it really matters anyway" approach to rule making.

2mm. TWO F&#@!%g mm. God, you'd think that this would be self-sorting. Who would want to lug a 2.1" tire around on a cross bike, anyway. Thanks for your unwavering attention to the really pressing needs of the sport.

My Personal High point

From a personal perspective, my highlight had to be the first two races of the year. Mid-pack in the 45+ at the first "kiddie prison" race and 14th at the Boulder CX Series #1 race at Xilinx started me off thinking I was going to hit my goal of consistent top 20 finishes in the Beer-Drinking-Dads. Never again did I see that kind of result for the year. Be it me liking the heat, poor training, or phase of the moon, I really missed that kind of result for the remainder of my season, but those 2 races were great.

The Aspen Lodge Course, as well as 2 days of slithering around in the muck at the New Belgium Cup also are the other memorable races for my year.

Still, it keeps coming back to one of the best things about racing Cyclocross. no matter where you finish, top 10 or 54th place, it's always fun to race cross. It's what keeps me beating myself up, coming back, week after week. Once again, I get to use my favorite, and seemingly endless cry of "next year!"

Friday time-waster

Here is my way of helping you waste 10 minutes on your Friday......

The "On-Board Diaries". a look back on the 2010 Cyclocross season, from the "middle of the pack viewpoint". Sound or headphones recommended.

The Dreary Season

So here we are, stuck in the deep, dark armpit of the calendar year, always cold, always dark, sucking the motivation clean out of your system. The malaise has even seemed to spread to my desire to ramble on this here blog-thing, since it's been a while since I dreamed up anything witty (or otherwise) to post here. I had the idea to do the "best of" posts, but then noticed that everyone else in the blog world had covered it very well, and that I was not getting to it in a timely fashion. So none of that kind of rambling from me this year. My late christmas present to you all.

Over here, the new year has brought less thoughts of the old & new years, and more realization that there is more to "life" than racing bikes on the weekends and working. I did notice that apperntley all that time racing over the fall was paid for by neglecting other things, like house cleaning, maintenance, quality time with my wife, and lots of little things like that. I came to that realization after noticing that I've been doing a LOT of the "Cleaning and Maintenance" type chores lately, and not nearly so much riding my bike & playing.

With the new year comes the end of my "break" from "training" that I generally do each holiday season. I end my break by starting back in the gym to work on building up my scrawny body, trying to rebalance the parts of one's body that cycling leaves "lacking", (in other words, everything from the waist up...) and my ongoing battle to keep my right knee and leg functional. Three knee surgeries in, and that knee is no longer working to original spec, and even worse, the riding leads to a dependance on the "good" leg, and even more imbalance. LOTS of one-leg "therapy" each winter seems to be what is keeping me out of the knee replacement shopping store for now. Course the biggest downside of working out in the gym is working out in the gym. Not that much fun. Oh, and that crippling sore muscle thing for the first few weeks is a joy too. Hard to get excited about a bunch of training blocks that involve nothing but picking up and putting down heavy items repeatedly, but it seems to be a requirement for this guy if I want to continue to function.

Did see the appearance of Cyclocross Magazine Issue # 11 in my mailbox today. Always gives me a little bit of a motivational boost to do the ugly and "not Fun" parts of trying to imitate a competitive athelete. Also it has been fun watching a Cyclocross ONLY magazine take off and mature over the last couple of years. Amazing, compared to the "olden days" of cross. This issue even has an article on Greg "I've finally gone completely round the bend" LeMond. I can't wait to see his latest ramblings, given some of his past performances.