A Handout on #Cyclocross Hand-ups

No sorry.  I'm vegetarian.

The one-upmanship is worrisome with two UCI level events on the horizon, (The Cincinnati UCI3 and the USGP in Louisville.)  A disturbing trend is emerging on the cyclocross circuit as evident in this weekend’s OVCX Storm the Greens race in Louisville.  Every week riders are being forced to make harder and harder choices.  A few weekends ago at a muddy race in Indiana it started with the traditional dollar bill hand up, which turned into an internet video sensation (see below).  A week or so later, the unimaginable happened.  With the threat of their skinny jeans being revoked, I actually saw hipsters break their 11^th commandment and give away cans of PBR at the John Bryan Classic in Yellow Springs, OH.  Yesterday, fine salted cure meats became the hand-up of choice, ala Dino's Gorilla Grill’s Famous Bacon.  What’s next?  Suddenly a Smart Car hand-up doesn’t sound so ridiculous.

PBR on a Platter

I fear the worst is yet to come.  Friday’s UCI race at Devou Park outside of downtown Cincinnati marks the first of 5 UCI events in the Ohio River Region.  The stakes are higher, and no doubt one crispy piece of bacon, one delicately placed dollar, or an ice cold can of Milwaukee’s favorite will not offer enough reward to risk a pro career.  In a local race, a rider may risk getting tripped up with a one handed bike carry on the barriers to snag a dollar.  I snagged some Mardi Gras beads and a dollar yesterday on Rachel’s drop.  Of course I was far out of the top 20 payout.  However, at a high level event, what will it take?  Let’s go to the crooked chart of Hand-Up Incentive versus Risk:

Incentive                 PBR    Bacon   $1          $5          $10

Risk

None                        Yes     Yes       Yes        Oh Yes  F Yeah!

Losing to Rival          No      Maybe  Yes        Uh huh   For Shiz

Last Payout Spot      No      No        Toughie  Yes        Heck Yeah

Age Podium              No     No         Hmm     Oh Boy  Lunch money!

Overall Podium         No     No         No         No        Bar Tape!

UCI Points               No     No         No         No        Sorry, no.

My Best CX Season p/b Pearl Izumi

Hence, my fear.  What kind of hand up will it take to get someone contesting a deep UCI payout to grab the prize?  The taste, novelty and value of hand-ups must increase for top level events.  There is obviously no food tastier than bacon.  Or is there?  A cupcake perhaps.  You may as well leave your dollars in your pocket and instead offer up that Visa or Best Buy gift card.  Even then you’d have to get creative and make that gift card a lovely garnish on a piece of cheese cake, maybe offer a vegan option for Molly Cameron. 

Prerequisites for good hand ups:

Lightweight. Item should not impede the rider past the point of inception.

Grabability.  Items must initially fit into one hand.

Stowability.  Item must be easily stashed under shorts, around the neck, between the boobs, or ingested.

Placement.  Item must be small enough to be placed as not to affect race outcome or impede others.

Beads and a Buck for a Brotha!

Items not recommended:  bowling balls, puppies, hot coffee, oatmeal, spaghetti, a dozen long stem roses, frozen turkeys, coffee table books, toasters or other small appliances, and children over 20lbs.

That leaves us with high value gift cards for I-Tunes and Best Buy, six packs of microbrew, Groupons to the Gap, brand name backpacks (a nice Dakine perhaps), CDs/DVDs, easily pawnable gold rings, I Phone 3’s, Pearl Izumi arm warmers, shots of top shelf liquor, gourmet meats such as prosciutto, delicacies like finger caprese salad, designer jeans, boutique chocolates, Marriot rewards points, and ultimately plane tickets to Belgium.

CX Obstacle Theory: Tipping With A Winning Lotto Ticket

The drum line banged out a University of Wisconsin caliber halftime show around the sandpit at OVCX #10 at Cincinnati’s Gun Club course.  At the start of the Elite race, it was nuts to butts as spectators lined the route along the barriers.  The cowbells hurt my ears.  Like waiting for the inevitable NASCAR 3 laps to go red flag restart wreck, quite a crowd gathered around the creek crossing to heckle and snicker at those that dabbed.  As a racer who’s been around the cross block, those weren’t the hard parts of the course.  Those weren’t the parts of the course that a racer really needed to think about when scouting the course in warm-up.  Get ready, cuz I’m about to slip a roofie in your water bottle and blow your CX mind.

A few years ago, my mind was blown.  I remember pre-riding the course behind teammate and Ohio Valley fast guy Phil Noble.  Phil has this great ability to find those little snippets of the course where you could gain an extra pedal stroke on hard ground.  At Gun Club, the little patch of pavement coming out of the U-Turn by the grill was a great example.   You’re saying, “I know exactly what you’re talking about Joe Biker!  You could totally get 2 big pedals strokes in there to bomb the gravel decent.”  Yes!  Yes!  No.  No.  You don’t get it.  Ya see, what I learned that day from Phil, while as big of a revelation as mayonnaise on French fries, was just a small tip to the valet.  It was a glimpse of something bigger.  I’m about to lay a “Get Him To The Greek” furry-wall mind blowing on ya.  I’m leaving the winning lotto ticket for the waitress.

What've you been doing since like freaking August?  Intervals!  Yes.  We’ve all been doing intervals since late August, because uh…well…that’s what idiots like us do to train for cyclocross.  You gotta do intervals.  Hill repeats.  Lactate threshold.  85%!  It’s all about the intervals, being the Duke of Devou Park, Master of Mt. Adams.  8 minute intervals.  3 minute intervals.  30 on, 30 off x4, 3 sets. 

The thing is, no one is doing sandpit repeats.  No one’s doing LT intervals through a creek crossing.  You’re certainly not doing 10 second intervals through the barriers.  The sandpit, barriers, run ups and creek crossings are just there to confuse you.  Shut up legs?  No.  Shut up brain.  If you’re easing up on the straightaways and catching your breath through soft corners, you’re doing cyclocross backwards.

Think about where doing two and three minute donkey wheezing snot driveling lactate threshold intervals would’ve paid off at Gun Club.  Through the start and finish area straightaways?  Yes.  After the little single barrier run-up and into the soft cornered out and back section of the course?  Yes.  Headed up to the bridge?  Yes.  After the big “run-up?”  Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  There’s your 2 minute intervals.  There’s your 30 on and 30 off.  Those are precisely the sections of the course where you should be burning your matches.

(GUN CLUB WARM-UP COURTESY PETER HILLS)

Next time when you scout a course, look at it in relation to your training, your intervals, where you’re going to go all out, where you can recover.  What I learned from Phil wasn’t about where I could gain two pedal strokes.  It was about gaining the first two pedal strokes going into the real hard parts of the course, where I could open it up full gas.  Danish Nat'l Champ Joachim Parbo once said to a group at the Devou Park CX Clinic, it’s not about who gets through the barriers first.  It’s about who gets up to 25mph after the barriers first. 

At Gun Club, there wasn’t much ground to be gained between the sand pit and the single barrier run-up.  There weren’t gaps to be goosed on the hillside switchback, the creek crossing or the twists and turns that returned riders to the pit area.  The obstacles of a cx course are where having a lower heart rate and a clear head can prevail.  Obstacles mean recovery.  Getting on the gas sooner out of obstacles and holding onto that speed into the next recovery section is where gaps are created and wheels held.  Now go download some Dead on I-Tunes and get on the trainer.

It’s Not About The Barriers: Risk, Reward and the Cyclocross Course

The worst and the best cyclocross courses, I’ve raced them both. While you remember Cyclocross courses for certain features, the difference between a good and bad course rarely comes down to sand pits, log barriers, off cambers or cool hand built flyovers. The great courses offer risk and reward. (pictured above Masters racers take the risk of a fast entry into a 3 wide sand pit at OVCX Gun Club Race, 2008 Milford Ohio)

Cyclocross is much more than a fastest person wins bike race. It’s a mental game pitting skills versus speed. Some of the best courses I’ve raced tempt riders to make hard decisions throughout the course. The choice can be as simple as run it or ride it or as daunting as grabbing a handful of brake or blasting wide-freaking-open. At the OVCX Kingswood course this past weekend, a double barrier was followed by two 180 degree hairpins. Right off the bat, you’re thinking that sucks. It’s a total - everyone goes through slow and single file - choke point, but it wasn’t. The beautiful part of it was that you had to make the first hairpin a delicate fraction of a second after remounting from the barriers. The corner was taped wide. Some riders chose to run the first 180 the first lap and ride the turn on successive laps. Some opted for the longer but less susceptible to carnage outside line. Others tried their skills only to fumble getting clipped in through the turn. Multiple choice, but only one fast answer per lap. Brilliant.

One of my favorite risk/reward course set-ups was the natural double log barriers at the OVCX John Bryan race in 2008. The logs were a bunny-hop-able 10-12 inches thick, separated by a 10-12 yards of grass long enough to land and relaunch for the 2^nd log. However, the logs were on a fast straightaway, leaving riders to question whether it was faster to dismount at high speed and run, or slow to hop them. With conditions changing and fatigue setting in over the course of the race, it left a helmet scratching decision every lap. It rewarded strong riders with the skills to risk bunny hopping them every lap. It still rewarded those that could dismount at speed without touching the brakes. It punished those who committed beyond their talents. Now, mentally make those logs 16-18 inches round and roll them within 4-5 yards of each other. Unless you’re the one freak-of-nature in the race that can bunny hop anything, everyone is going to hit the brakes and run the logs. The risk and reward is gone. It wasn't about the logs, but how they were placed in relation to the course and each other.

Don’t get confused; risk/reward in Cyclocross has nothing do to with opening up a course or making it less challenging. It is about choices. Take the Green Monster flyover at the USGP course in Louisville in 2008. It was a behemoth wooden bridge structure with about 10 stairs on one side, a table top, and a ramp down the other. The stairs were tall and shallow. The table top wasn’t more than 2-3 feet longer than a bike. The steep ramp shot you out into a wide fast turn. The structure was wide enough for riders to tackle two abreast. It rewarded those with extremely quick dismount/remount skills combined with technical skills and punished those who hesitated for a split second of indecision or a case of nerves. More than once I saw it cause a gap between a rider with buttoned up skills and someone who had to look down to clip their foot in their pedal. Sure the Green Monster was challenging and an intimidating sight, but it was it's placement on the course that really made it spectacular. Had there been a tight turn at the bottom, riders would've played it a little more safe and never have attacked it as hard as they did.

Risk/reward, in regards to cyclocross courses not only applies to the obstacles, but the little nuances of the course. One of my favorites, while just a mosquito of a detail, is having a section of the course be a little pavement on one side and grass on the other. I’ve encountered this feature number of times and have learned to look for it in my pre-rides. Imagine a grassy stretch leading into a long sweeping corner. However, the corner slightly crosses a paved drive or golf cart path. Experienced riders will know that riding on pavement is faster than grass, so they’d take advantage to stand up and bang out a few hard pedal strokes on the pave. Others simply didn’t see the crumb of advantage right in front of their eyes. The risk: we all know what can happen going from wet grass to smooth pavement. Whoops!

My last example is about adding the element of speed to a course, particularly into and out of obstacles. When you put a tight turn in front of or after an obstacle, it forces all riders to stack and slow. Now replace those choking turns with a more direct or fluid route in and/or out of the obstacle. Riders that can really attack the obstacle at fearless speed are rewarded. Intimidated riders have to slow. The better all around cyclocrossers are rewarded, not the lucky ones who eek through the stacked up carnage.

Even though cyclocross is gaining immense popularity, the courses are still crafted by grass roots clubs and teams, not ex-pros or people that try to eek out a living on race promotion. It’s still September and a whole season is in front of us. When most design a course, they think: we need a sandpit, some off camber, a stretch of single track, some logs, some tight corners, a set of stairs, a little pavement, a nasty run-up and our logo on the barriers. Those are just elements, paint in the can. Tie those elements in a way that rewards riders who can take the risk and do it faster than the competition, now that makes a good course.

Psycho-Cross!

Okay, I give. Click on the picture for the real Best Bike Blog Ever, Carpet Machine. I cannot compete with jumping bikes through fire. I am truely humbled.

Oh yeah...Happy Halloween!

CX Dismount Epiphany-The Answer You've Been Looking For

As a rule, I pooh-pooh blogging about other blogs. It gives me the media heebie jeebies. I equate blogging about blogs to TV shows about radio shows, movies about newspapers or any combination you can think of. There’s just something not right about it. However, after reading the comments on Belgian pro Christine Vardaros’ blog about an entry titled “Just an average CX training day in Belgium,” (great article about running into Mario De Clercq on a CX practice loop) I noticed a nugget of supreme importance. This tiny little piece of information is at the root of a debate between me and nearly ever single crosser I know. It’s something that you may discover on your own. However, you would never know it with 100 percent of your soul unless you had a Belgian cyclocross coach, had complete disregard for sounding too naïve to ask a pro…or had to execute a perfect dismount in front of cyclocross god Mario De Clercq. Luckily, Christine (pictured left: photo from her blog) had to do just that and one such reader, at the risk of sounding naïve, had the cowbells to toss the question out there for the world to see. GCDavid was the first to comment on the post. Of all the things that could be said or asked about running into Mario DeClercq while practicing CX in Belgium, his question was simple. “Dismount: right leg behind left or in front of left??”

I whacked my computer hoping it would make a sound on Christine’s end and get her attention to answer. “Peanut? Are you there? GCDavid has a question of utmost importance. Whack!” Seven hours passed before she answered. With her blog minimized on my computer, I nearly had an aneurism waiting. Then, the epiphany posted.

In the comments of this entry on her blog, Christine Vardaros says the following regarding how you should step when dismounting your cyclocross bike, especially when you’re doing it in front of CX hero Mario De Clercq. I hope you are sitting down, because the ceiling is about to open with pretty white Belgian angels and cherubs flying around playing harp music:

“Right foot in front of left when you are doing a high speed flat dismount. Your right foot serves as the first step of the run. And the right food steps behind left when you are getting off at slower speed or on an uphill. Hope that helps.”

Hope that helps??!! Oh my god woman! You are a saint! (A little peanut shaped fast cyclocrossing saint) And, thank you GCDavid, wherever you are, for having a big set of jangly cowbells to ask.

My buddy and BioWheels/Reece-Campbell teammate Tony and I have been debating this as if should be one way or the other. He watches so many cross videos on Belgium Knee Warmers blog and Crosstube.net that his girlfriend probably wishes it was porn. He insists the “right foot behind” is the faster way. However, “right foot in front” is second nature to me and therefore faster for me. So our rule has been whatever is faster for you…until now.

Alas, Christine has pointed out that both ways have their place and are faster given the situation and an ungodly amount of practice in front of cyclocross gods like Mario De Clercq. And, my guess (as a person with a degree in broadcasting) is that most CX dismount videos are shot at a slower portion of the course where it’s easier to film the riders for a longer period of time and consequently the “right foot behind” dismount is the one that is most prevalent on the videos.

Out Of True Video: Louisville CX Carnage

While "Out Of True" is under construction becoming The Best Bike Blog Ever, enjoy this silly Cyclocross Video from the Tour of Louisville this past Sunday.