Cyclocross Rivalries

I really like this little blog. I like writing about things that are not about me. Mostly those things that I write about are cycling related and for most people that's simply not interesting. So me and this little blog run into a bigger problem of things to write about when for the casual cycling fan the road season has come to a close and my personal favorite time of the year, cyclocross, has started.

I've expressed how hard I find it to describe cyclocross to someone who's never heard of it many times. We're a niche within a niche so that makes it pretty tough. I guess this shouldn't really matter to me because I've never bothered with google analytics (?) to see how many people stop by and read my ramblings, so I suppose it's not out of the question that I just write about whatever I want to write about and assume that it's simply getting lost in the interwebs. Which, I also suppose, is fine.

That brings me, in a totally unrelated sort of way, to today's topic, rivalries. Boy do I love a good rivalry. There's just something about a group of people deciding they dislike another group of people for really no good reason beyond their own attraction for someone or some other team. I am a pretty firm believer in that rivalries are 100% good for any sport. You know why Nebraska decided to leave the Big 12? Mainly because they felt like their old rivalry game with Oklahoma was being ignored. When Nebraska officially moved to the Big 10, both Michigan and Ohio St. were quick to make sure that their game stayed on the schedule. Both of those schools need that game. College football needs that game. Rivalries are what keep sports interesting and meaningful and they extend well beyond the scoreboard.

Cyclocross, while growing, is still a terribly small niche within the already niche sport of cycling. The races are often not close to where you live and the tiny amount of coverage they are given make it very difficult to follow and stay up to date on. One website trying to fix that, and doing a pretty good job, is cyclingdirt.org. Through their attempt to bring better coverage to the sport, they've also shined the light on a rivalry that has apparently existed for quite some time between Tim Johnson, current National Champ and Johnathon Page, former multi-time National Champ.

The first time I became aware of the rivalry was watching videos of the 2009 GP Gloucester last year when this happened:

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Let me try to break the video down, just a bit, to help people who may still actually be reading but not understand what they saw. In a cross race there are sections, sand especially, that you are a huge advantage if you are in the front. The reason being, if the guy in front of you looses his line or dismounts and has to run, you then have to go around him through a bad line which may force you to dismount giving the guy in front a huge advantage. Similarly, if you're in front and you bobble then at least everyone behind you is equally affected and you are in a sense still in control of the situation. These two guys, Page (who crashes) and Johnson (the one with his leg out) both want to be in the front going into the sand so they are racing for the entrance.

Here are Page's post race comments when asked about it:

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And Johnson's at about :38 :

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There's also a video of Jeremy Powers who's response is basically, "rubbin' is racin' and we're all friends."

Disclaimer:This is where I clearly take a side and show my loyalty in this rivarly.

I could dig up a ton of videos of Page after every race he doesn't win complaining about how everybody was using negative tactics and nobody rides hard and nobody wants to race and nobody's being aggressive and blah blah blah. But oddly enough, these comments only come after he doesn't win. Page races mostly in Europe where, rumor has it, the races are way more aggressive than in the states, with guys chopping corners for 30th place, so it seems odd, that he's always upset when these things happen in the US. This year in Madison for the first round of the USGP, while there's no video of the incident, apparently Page took issue with Johnson once again.

Look here at about :15 where he interrupts an interview.

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And here, in his own interview, where he can't even answer questions he's so angry:

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This is how Ryan Trebon responded on twitter after the race.

Powers once again denied all rivalry. Which I actually believe because he's probably the nicest person in lycra.

But, I think this video, if you can actually get through it all, the bike geek level is really, really high if you haven't noticed, these guys, totally independent of the situation, without naming names, pretty much call Page out. My assumption is that he's "that guy" when they say "that guy," but I could be wrong.

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Anyway, what do I know? No matter who's at fault I think having a rivalry like this is 100% good for the sport. Polarizing figures/situations make people take sides and when you take a side you cheer louder for your guy. This weekend at the World Cup in Switzerland will be the first time these two have raced on the same course since Madison at the USGP. With the larger field size and both guys having to start 3rd or 4th row it seems unlikely that they'll be spending as much time in small groups where they can annoy one another as they do over here. That's also the unfortunate thing about this rivalry, it's pretty short lived on a yearly basis since Johnson races mostly in the US and Page races almost exclusively in Europe. But, you take what you can get I suppose.

What I'd really like to see is a Ryan Trebon v. Jeremy Powers rivalry. It sort of exists. I feel like there's a the Kona v. Cannondale mind set with a lot of fans. It doesn't hurt any that the Kona guys are west coasters and the Cannondale guys are east coasters. I think it would be good for both of those bike companies if they could figure out a way to build that rivalry up. I have no ideas for how to make that happen. Especially since they also seem to actually like each other, which, in my experience, dampens the spirit of a true rivalry.

First Cross Race, Ouch!

I don't want to make any excuses here, I basically sucked. I raced in the 3/4 instead of the 4 because it had a 2 hour later start time, 11am, and I figured it wouldn't be that much fast. Truth be told, I don't know if it was that much faster or if I was just going that slow the whole time. But I finished way, way, way, way off the leaders and must closer to the last place guy than the first place guy.

The course was not suited to someone like me. Of course the only course actually suited to my needs would be on that starts at sea level, ends about 1,000 to the 2,000 feet higher. Throw some barriers and a few tricky corners to screw up the purest of pure climbers and I probably have a chance. This course was a fun one, but only gained an approximate 1' of elevation per lap. There were technical sections but there also a lot of wide open power sections, which, made one of my greatest limiters glaringly obvious. That limiter being the ability to put power down.

I started pretty much in the back because they staged us by registration number. I registered like a week before the race so apparently that means I start in the back. I felt like I got a decent start, you know, considering and was trying to make my way up through the first half of the course. Somewhere in there, and I'm not exactly sure where by my moving up switched to moving back and that was a pretty consistent theme for the rest of the day.

Things you need in a cross race:
-Power
-Bike Handling Skills
-Snap
-Muscular endurance, a lot!
-Aerobic endurance, not a lot, but it certainly helps.
-Will power.

Things I had for this race:
-will power.
-1/2 bike handling skills.

Will power does not win races. It does however make you fight really hard to catch the group of three guys in front of you that somehow seems to be getting further and further away. It then transitions that focus to holding off the guy behind you who seems to be getting closer by the lap until he finally passes on the last power section. It also motivates you to sprint to get on his wheel which I was unable to accomplish.

So, the positives, because I mean, it was still fun:
- I beat the guy in the bowling shirt. But, if there were 2 more laps, who knows.
- My tubeless tire set up seemed to work great. I was running about 30lbs of pressure in both tires and with all the roots in the tree section I'm pretty sure I would have flatted with a tube in there.
- There was an obstacle of logs lining a walking path. The course went over it, 180 degree u-turn and then back over it again. I rode that section every lap which makes me feel good about my bike handling skills. Not sure it was faster to ride but I wasn't getting passed by guys getting off their bikes either. Even in traffic.
- I was sort of motivated before, now I'm really motivated because getting your ass kicked by that much is bad for your soul, or something like that.

Links to Cool Stuff You, yes You, Should See

Random things I've run across today that I think you should see.

Read this article about the current life of former Tour de France winner Floyd Landis. Like him, hate him or refrain from caring, but this is a pretty piece about a guy who seems to honestly want to right his wrongs. He's still one of my favorite pro bike racers, even if he isn't really a pro bike racer anymore.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5652787

I pretty much stand by my position that Greg LeMond is an old, angry, bitter man. But I saw an add for the new trainer that his company, LeMond Revolution put out and this thing is genius! I'm still a much bigger fan of riding on rollers but sometimes a trainer would be nice. Like the times where you just want to watch a movie and not worry about getting caught up in a chase scene and following the action left to the point that you are now crashing into the wall. Yeah, that's happened to me more than once. The problem with trainer and rollers has always been that they destroy your tires, problem solved!
http://www.lemondfitness.com/product_detail/465/lemond-revolution

My personal favorite pro ass cyclocross racer is Jeremy Powers. Like most folks I pick my favorites based on personality and I find him entertaining, insightful and charismatic. Basically a person I'd like to hang out and ride with if I personally knew him, which I don't. This year, he's working with Sam something or another, a guy that makes cyclocross films and their putting small episodes of what is supposed to be a larger, season long film at the end. Anyway, if you go to http://www.jeremypowers.missingsaddle.com/ you can see the first three installments.


Cyclocross is a hard sport to describe. I often stumble through some "You ride a bike that looks like a road bike but has knobby, fatter tires. It's off road and on. There's obstacles..." Needless to say, that's not very good. This guy, who I just stumbled across, does a pretty good job of describing cross through a cartoon of sorts. Check it out: http://slonie.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/cx-comic/

I didn't find this one today but it's worth a mention. http://www.cyclingdirt.org/ is a website dedicated to off road cycling. That means that during the year they cover mtb races, which I don't really follow much, but during cross, they follow cross, so I go here about a ga-billion times per day. If you're a super dork like me and like pre and post race interviews from the super fast guys and some really good race coverage, get familiar with this site. This year, during the USGPs they have live video with three different cameras on the course. That's pretty awesome.

Last but not least, and I don't want to harp on this, but with Amgen Tour of California 2011 route was announced today, http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/photos/amgen-tour-of-california-host-cities-announced/144560. Is it just me or does bringing back the Solvang TT seem like an obvious attempt to give Levi an edge? The state is GIGANTIC! They're going to new places every year. Solvang is a cool little town and all, but there are other places that could host a great TT. Even a hilly TT like this one which Levi seems to really like and win. I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist here, but it just seems like the head honcho for the ToC is a big Levi fan. I'm just saying...

Winning the Tour with Seasonal Allergies

I haven't really formed much of an opinion or done much research on the Contador testing positive news. My initial response, since it's a positive for Clenbuterol, which is a steroid product used inhalers, was that I remembered an interview I read with him a few years ago where he complained about having really bad seasonal allergies and that he liked it when it rained so that he could breath. I also remembered his losing one of the week long stage races, maybe Paris-Nice, and he blamed it on allergies. Who knows?

I'm not sure I care if he's positive or not. He's trying to go with some food ingestion theory, who knows, maybe it's true. I find it more surprising this year since his performance, while obviously good enough to win, wasn't that explosive form that he usually embarrasses everybody else with. If he had tested positive last year it would have been the same as when Ricco tested positive after riding faster than the motorcycles to the summit finish. But not this year, it just didn't go that way. It seemed like he was always on his limit and sort of relieved that nobody else was just a tad better. Maybe that means that in 2007-2009 he was way doped up and this year he was only a little doped up. Again, who knows?

The other thing that jumps out at me is the timing. Why'd it take this long to report the positive? Floyd's positive was announced within a week of the end of the Tour. This was announced at the end of September? I'm sure they told him ahead of time as that seems to be the practice, but what took it so long to hit the media? Especially the American media who have a pretty clear anti-Contador agenda. A Contador positive will make all the Armstrong lovers out there shout with "I knew its!"

Maybe I'm just a cynic but I just don't care any more. I want the sport of clean up like everybody else but when this story hit the velonews front page, I skipped it to read about cyclocross races I'd already read about. I guess I'll be more interested after the trial or case or hearing or whatever they're going to hold to decide what happens.

One thing that I do find sort of ironic, no Riss rider is ever caught up in these scandals. It's clear that this one pre-dates the Riss/Contador relationship, but, it's there now. With everybody else fleeing the Riss Cycling ship I wonder how Riss plans on handling the situation? Seems like in the past he'd have taken a hard line right from the start, but when it's your new golden boy that essentially brought the sponsor money in, it's got to be a little tough to tell him he's out of a job.