CXO in Europe - talking (mostly) about practice

Cross season here runs until Mid-January so we are still at it and still getting muddy. Really muddy. Willow beach on a crap day kind of muddy and that is just practice.

So much rain that two races have now been cancelled because the courses were under water – feet of water.   Last week’s race (supercross number 3) did indeed happen: Pictures and a report here:

http://www.cyclingulster.com/?thenewsid=3702&newstable=news

Bonus points for finding the factual error in the article.

Yesterday’s final Supercross race was also a great success- well mostly unless you were the guy who wrapped a few meters of course tape around your cassette on lap 2 just after catching the group in front of you – that guy spent the rest of the day chasing back fruitlessly into a really stiff wind.

Pictures  here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ollietrex/6122009MadSupercross#

A video here:

But beyond noting that the entire supercross series was top notch. I cannot add much about the races – so far all of the official races follow the same format. If anything truly new / novel occurs I will update.  Luckily practice here is novel and to quote the locals “savage”.

Just like TO the main practice is on Tuesday night. This is mainly a skills session, lead by a multiple time national champion in both cross and mountain bike.  The location is a park in a non-descript corner of the city that is near the motorway (highway). The location was picked because there is enough ambient light from the roads to sort of see. Not really see mind you. The course is set up using plastic stakes with red blinky lights on them.  Between the stakes you can see the outlines of people and get some sense of the ground you are on. But basically we are practicing in the dark in a muddy field that has a nice little hill at one end for doing off camber stuff.

Typically a session is between 90 minutes and 2 hours. The first half is a mix of skills like starts, turns and the like. A favorite exercise is the death spiral which involves setting up a tight circle on the side of the hill and getting in a line in reverse order of speed. Ride as fast as possible. Every lap the person in the last gets kicked out. Sort of like musical chairs, except at high speed going around a circle on the side of a hill at speed – usually with limited traction. Passing with no strait sections is obviously not easy. Luckily banging bars, leaning against each other and so on is encouraged.

Starts are generally practiced by sprinting to a blinkly light, making a tight turn and then sprinting to the next blinkly light and again turning.  This is usually followed by a turn through the soccer / football goalposts. Luckily the posts are white so you can see them. And the fence that you hit if you miss the turn….don’t miss the turn.  Again contact is going to happen. In Canada I often apologize if I take someone’s line- if I did that here I would never stop saying I was sorry.

The second half of practice is usually laps of a very tight course that takes 2 -3 minutes to get around. Typically this course is all turns with a few novel transitions from grass to tarmac and back again. The last 20 or so minutes are a race on this course. Again typically start in reverse order of speed with the fast guys trying to catch the less fast.  This is usually or beyond race pace and a painful way to end the session.  

We have also had a “ghetto race” on a weekend where was no official race. This was an awesome grass-roots cross race- and not just because I won.  The race was held in Phoenix Park which is the largest park in the city. It is also a park that at the last minute denied a permit to a race that was already on the schedule. Something very Irish about having an un-official race in the place where an official race was denied. But I digress. You may have heard of the park because of one these two events.

http://www.irishtimes.com/focus/papaldeath/article_p4a.htm

http://www.velonews.com/article/97144/armstrong-s-tweet-turns-out-more-than-1000-riders-for-a

The park is also famous for its herd of deer.

http://www.phoenixparkbook.com/deer.htm

I mention the deer because – well because in addition to the expected mud and joggers we also shared the course with the deer. They unlike the runners actually got out of our way. But based on the way my dogs were all over my bike when I got home the mud had a bit of deer poo in it as well. No idea but deer poo would explain the traction – or lack there of. So basically a bunch of racers show up at 8.45 on a Sunday morning. One of them has already mapped out a course. That course basically goes up a hill, across a bike path, halfway down the hill into the trees, back up on some really slick single track and then around and down the hill to the start – which again requires crossing the path.   We ride a couple of laps, make some minor changes based on the group’s desire and an annoyingly parked car, and decide on 9 laps or about 45 minutes. We then line up and race. No course tape, no officials telling me that I cannot race with a plastic pumpkin on my helmet, no one telling the guy on the full suspension bike he cannot race because of his bar ends, and so on.  And it was a good race, hard race. And as is seemingly the norm this year cleaning the bike took longer than the race.  

Three more small races in December and early January then Irish nationals in Mid-January. Nationals l I may be able to ride. There are already people from 2 countries involved – half from the commonwealth so we shall see? Apparently anyone with an Irish Cycling license is allowed to ride MTB nationals – so this should /could be the same. And then maybe Master’s Worlds to get my ass kicked and drink some Belgium beer?

Enjoy the snow – I know I won’t miss it.