ride joe ride

Sunday was perhaps the quintessential fall cyclocross day, and the race put on by Half Acre was second to none: crisp air, gorgeous blue skies and the trees beginning to change. The course in Dekalb was as good as last year , and perhaps better. I managed a mediocre finish at best, and I enjoyed the hell out of achieving it. Since Jackson Park I’ve been working on some conclusions, and they basically boil down to this: I think I’ve finally resigned myself to racing for the middle of the pack. With resignation comes tranquility, and with tranquility in action there is room to finally think about style. And in then end, it all boils down to style, right?

Manifesto of the Mediocre Cyclocrosser

1. Show up to the race with a clean bike. If you’re a top-10 racer, a dirty bike at the start says “I just finished warming up doing intervals for 2 hours.” For the mediocre crosser, it says “I hope this thing isn’t still broken from last week’s race.”

2. Under no circumstances should you display horrible pacing. This is defined as being passed by more than 25% of the field due to bad pacing or “the alka seltzer” maneuver . Losing spots due to mechanicals/crashing/etc are handled under other rules. Grabbing the hole shot and crashing, or blowing up 3 minutes later is utterly bad form (UBF).

3. Learn how to corner. Your cornering should look graceful, or at least not painful. i.e. you should not come flying into a corner, grab a handful of squealing brakes, come nearly to a halt and then dribble through the corner on a bad line. This has nothing to do with cutting people off by taking the inside line (which can be done in high style).

4. Make your brakes stop squealing. Do the PRO’s brakes squeal? No. Neither should yours.

5. Nothing should fall off your bike nor should anything break during a race except under duress. So breaking a chain due to your massive quad strength, fine. Cracking a steerer tube in a hard mixup, fine. Having your crank fall off mid-race (or pre-race) due to loose bolts, not fine. Since you have so much extra time not worrying about training, spend some of it fixing your bike.

6. Do not crash randomly. Working hard to stay ahead of your rival or trying not to break rule #1? Fine. In those cases, crashing is a sign that you just discovered the limits of your ability. Crashing while tooling along by yourself is UBF.

7. If you’re not in the top third of the race, you do not have the right to a game face. Wipe the grimace of pain off your face. Practice looking tranquil. “Yeah, I know I’m off the back, I’m working on a new cornering technique” is what you’re shooting for.

8. When you get lapped or the next race leaders catch up to you, it’s time to put on your most PRO behavior. When the gravy train comes up behind you, you have to yield. Not getting out of their way is UBF. That said, pulling over to the side of the course and stopping for a sip from the water bottle is also UBF. You’re still racing. Try to make it look like you’re gifting them the pass rather than making them put you in the tape for it.

9. No powertaps. A powertap says that you’re more interested in increasing fitness than your style. Since your fitness obviously isn’t going anywhere, this a big yellow marker of futility. A powertap on a mediocre ‘crosser is exactly the same mistake made when someone puts one of those big airfoils on a Honda Civic. I am embarrassed by how long I rode around with a powertap now that I think about it.

10. Your form in the barriers should not change from beginning of the race until the end. Period. A graceful antelope over the first set of barriers and eventually grandma tiptoeing through the garden by the end of 45 min? UBF. Get some barrier style and then stick to it. If you can’t, then go slower.

11. Get some barrier style.

12. Under no circumstance should you ever pass someone by going into the red and then immediately allow them to pass and ride away from you. Back and forths are the essence of the race, but burning all your matches to just make it in front of a person and then getting dropped is UBF.

13. Relatedly: passing someone and then crashing in front of them (i.e. in a corner) is UBF unless you’re doing so to further a teammate’s position, in which case it’s high style.

14. Finally, ignore results since they are likely only to disturb your tranquility, lead to undue striving and ruin your style. Particularly ignore non-top-10 results (which is functionally the same thing for the mediocre ‘crosser). Contesting your 24th place result when you really deserved 19th is seriously UBF.