I joined 1,800 other cyclists from all over the United States (including 17 from Texas) who made the trip north to race during the five-day event.
For those of you not familiar with the sport of cyclocross, a recent article in The Wall Street Journal aptly described it as “what resulted when road biking and mountain biking fell in love and had an awesome baby.”
Organizers of the 2014 championships described their Colorado course as being both “the best CX course in the United States” and also “significantly more difficult” than any of the other recent nationals courses.
The older 60 and above Masters racers from Texas, who raced in frigid 21 degree weather early on Thursday morning, described the course more succinctly as “extremely difficult and downright scary in places.”
“There were several sections that I chose to run down instead of try to ride,” said Waco’s Fred Schmid, a competitor in the 80+ category. "
“The risk of a hard fall and serious injury on the steep icy sections made dismount-and-run the obvious decision for many of the early-morning racers.”
Texas racer Whitney Fanning of Waco, who raced in the 65-69 category, agreed with Schmid that “the course and weather conditions offered challenges we don’t encounter in Texas races.”
The Valmont Bike Park course included steep descents, never-ending sections of icy off-camber turns and climbs, and steep run-ups. Add packed snow and frozen mud ruts to the already rough terrain, and you have a recipe that significantly escalated the difficulty factor as illustrated in a video posted at cyclingfans.com/node/10490.
Several days before Thursday’s races, a foot of new snow fell on what would have already been a very hard course. Pre-riding by racers on Tuesday and non-championship racing on Wednesday afternoon coupled with daytime snow melt left a tangled web of packed snow and mud ruts that froze solid in the overnight sub-20 degree temperatures.
Short power climbs became unridable frozen run-ups, steep descents became a recipe for bone- and bike-breaking crashes, and off-camber downhill turns morphed into foot-out, try-not-to-crash slides or run-through sections.
On the lower portion of the course, the packed snow ruts and frozen mud made going fast difficult with bumpy low-traction straights linked together with 180 turns and small off-camber ups and downs.
The course started with a fast and flat dirt road that made a right turn and then immediately headed up a moderate double-track climb on packed snow.
After topping out the climb, racers went through a series of flat turns, dropped into a sharply-off-camber left-hand descent, and then turned back uphill into what should have been a short power climb.
With the mud ruts and icy snow, the short climb proved to be the first run-up of the day.
Racers remounted their bikes on top of the hill, rode through a frozen sand pit, and then dropped into a steep downhill through ice-covered mud ruts that lead into an icy right-hand corner at the bottom.
Many of the 60-and-older competitors opted to run down this section instead risking a hard crash on the frozen snow and icy mud ruts.
After completing the downhill, a flat section of frozen trail lead to the base of the 5280 stair run-up where racers shouldered their bikes to run (or walk) up the 24 steps of the double stair section. The top step was placed exactly at an altitude of 5,280 feet.
Competitors remounted their bikes after the stairs and then faced “Pete’s Plunge”, an off-camber twisty descent named for the course designer Pete Webber.
Many racers slid out or crashed on this section to the delight of hecklers who lined the course encouraging racers to go faster in hopes of seeing a spectacular wreck.
After riding (or sliding) through Pete’s Plunge, riders went onto the lower part of the course where more ice and packed snow, 180-degree turns, short off-cambers, and another set of run-up stairs waited for victims.
The most difficult lower-course section featured double uphill barriers followed immediately by a tricky off-camber 180-degree turn that went down and then back up. Many races opted to continue running through the off-camber instead of remounting after the barriers.
The remainder of the lower course proved to be much more difficult than expected as the early morning sun melted the top layer of packed snow leaving a slick wet film on top. Crashes were common in these areas with traction being nonexistent on the fast corners.
The consensus among older Master’s racers from Texas was that both the course and related weather conditions were the most difficult they had ever experienced.
Waco’s Fred Schmid finished 2nd in the Men’s 80-84, Bill Cullins was 12th in the 65-69, and Waco’s Whitney Fanning rolled across the finish line 13th in the 65-69.
The 2015 national cyclocross championships will be held in Texas in Austin’s Zilker Park, with Texas racers hoping that the normally warmer and dryer Austin conditions will provide a better opportunity for Texas racers to place high.
This year’s cyclocross national championships were cold, rough, and snowy, so let’s hope that Austin in 2015 is dry, warm, and fast.
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