Amateur World CX Championships, 1988

You set off on a ride on a cold, oppressive rainy day wearing only a thin layer of clothes. Your hands are frozen to the handlebars. The pavement is a whirl of spray making it nearly impossible to see the other wheels spinning all around you. Your wheels drop off-road into a disgusting soup of muddy grit. Pedal hard.

The rain is falling, the wind's picking up. The mud gets so deep that you can no longer ride through it. Your feet are not only cold and wet, they're now getting sucked into the sodden earth with every trudging step.

There are sections of this hellish route that you can ride, but it takes all of your riding skills and every dram of concentration to keep from sliding out and lying prone in the mire. Within a few minutes you're exhausted. It will be nearly an hour before you reach your destination. Your arms and legs already hurt, your lungs are searing, but thank goodness you're no longer frozen. The effort is warming if nothing else.

Just as you think it can't get worse you come to a hill. It's as muddy as the flats. Spanning across the slope are hefty logs. At first you think that's a good thing. They will at least offer a place to get your footing. But the logs require giant steps to get over and with the bike on your shoulder it takes all your effort and an occasional push on your thigh to lift yourself up.

The slide down the other side is perilous. Somehow you stay upright. The course flattens out, but the mud gets too deep again to ride through. You're running. Mud covers your eyes. Somebody put up stupid boards you can barely see, much less step over. Boards. Why?

Back on the bike, but it's still mud and the legs are on fire. Another murky uphill looms before you, but this one doesn't have logs and it's slightly off camber. You feel like Sisyphus, only instead of pushing a rock, you're carrying a bike.

Every time you hop on that bike it's a challenge to get your feet back in the toe clips. Yes, toe clips. This is the pre-clipless era, the Precliprian Age. The bikes are ferrous and heavy. The thin round top tube cuts into your shoulder.

Eventually, the wheel finds its way back to wet, rain-slicked pavement. After a few hundred feet you feel like you've been here before, but it's not over. Ten minutes have passed and you still have fifty minutes to go before you're allowed to quit. And the thought of quitting is ever-present in your thoughts. As you press forth it's like a duplicating cartoon backdrop, the same crap ridden scene repeating lap after lap. You have been here before. The muck returns.

At this point you're so covered in dense swathes of mud that you're indistinguishable from an ape. Yes, you've regressed. This is evolution in reverse.

This is cyclocross, only it's 1988 in Hagendorf, Germany. You're not going to win. You're barely holding on. You know that the kind of cyclocross you do in your home region is a thin veneer of this kind of racing, this kind of course. You're riding harder than you've ever ridden, in more pain than you've ever imagined, and it feels like you're going backwards. Once you finish--if you finish--you will have taken a step back, in Darwinian terms. Maybe a few steps back. You have a gritty taste of Hominoid hormones salivating across your tongue.

And you're only an amateur. You do this for "fun." You're a subspecies of the Elite class who will race this course after you've chewed it up.

Cyclocross in toeclips. Life at its primitive source.

Watch the 1988 Hagendorf Cyclocross World Championships in 8 YouTube videos back-to-back. The Precliprian Age. Enjoy.



Podium
Karel Camrda - Czech (went on to place 2nd in the Elite Class of the 1992 World Championships in Leeds, UK.)
Roger Honegger - Switzerland
Henrik Djernis - Denmark

Hoogerheide World Cup Cyclocross 2011

Livestream Goes Dead in Pont-Chateau
Well, last week at Pont-Chateau was exciting, especially when it appears as if all servers broadcasting the race crashed worse than Lars Boom at Baal. With more than half the race completed, the screens went blank and left us all with only our imaginations to complete the final laps.

Niels Albert and Kevin Pauwels were battling it out at the front with an insurmountable lead, barring disaster. Sorry Kevin, but I wrongly predicted that Niels would wear you down. Nice to see that you're keeping Niels humble.

Behind was a large cluster of major contenders for 3rd and Sven Nys off the back of that group seemingly out of contention all together. With an odd crash that brought down nearly half that pack and the always miraculous Sven reeling in the rest of the group for a raging sprint for the final podium spot with a disappointed Steve Chainel settling for 4th.

Oh yes, what a race. And how cool it is that my imagined finish was so far off. I did have dreams, staring at that black screen, that Tim Johnson stood on that lowest step of the podium at the finish. Still, he was great throughout the race and should be very proud of that 12th place finish. He was right there with the major players all the way to the end.

It took a few hours, but the last two laps were finally posted on the YouTube Cyclocross Channel and there was only a lap or so of the complete race that we'd lost out on.

Hoogerheide Roster
For the final race of the World Cup season at Hoogerheide there should be a full roster from each team, including Zdenek Stybar this time. Not only that, but Radomir Simunek is also on the start roster after his recuperation from the broken collarbone at Zolder last month. Interestingly, Bart Wellens is not lining up. He walked off the course last week at Pont-Chateau and I haven't found any news reports on the reason for this. Lars Boom is not on the UCI race roster.

USA (Go guys!)
Jeremy Powers
Timothy Johnson
James Driscoll
Ryan Trebon
Jonathan Page

Canadians
Derrick St. John
Craig Richie
Shaun Adamson

In any case, it should be a great race and an indication of the racers' condition a week before the World Championships in Sankt Wendel, Germany.

Let's hope we get to see the race this Sunday from start to finish. Imagination is a wonderful thing, but in this case I'd rather watch the wheels digging into the dirt than create my own pretend scenario.

Livestream ("Cross" your fingers)




Hoogerheide
Sunday, January 23rd @ 8:40amEST(+-)
Channel 3
Channel 7
Channel 8

Pontchateau World Cup Cyclocross LiveStream

Pontchâteau


8:30am EST, Sunday, January 16, 2011

Channel 3 (Includes interactive commentary)
Channel 7
Channel 8
Channel 9
InfoSporz

Sven Nys feels better after his inconveniently timed bout with flu, say's he'll be there. Niels Albert will be racing his first World Cup race since winning as Belgian National Champion. Zdenek Stybar says he won't be there, though this has pissed a lot of racers off because it's felt he needs to carry his national champion banner to World Cup races for the good of promoting the sport. Instead, he's training in Spain for the upcoming World CX Championships on January 30th in Sankt Wendel, Germany. Ah, the drama!

European National CX Championships 2011

Sunday, January 9th will be the day of reckoning for elite European racers in cyclocross. Whoever wins in their respective country will be wearing the national champ jersey for a full year.

These races will be livestreamed from Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Your struggle will be deciding which to focus on because, unfortunately, they're basically running simultaneously.

Belgium | Now scheduled for 8:00am EST
Elite - Albert 1st, Wellens 2nd, Pauwels 3rd, Aernout 4th
U-23 - Joeri Adams 1st
Women - Sanne Cant 1st, Nancy Bober 2nd
Channel 3
Channel 5
Channel 7
Channel 8


Netherlands | 9:00am EST
This is no longer listed in programming, but worth trying, nevertheless.
Channel 12
Channel 13



France | 9:15am EST
Mourey 1st
Gadret 2nd
Jeannesson 3rd
Chainel 4th
Bazin 5th
Channel 9
Channel 10
Channel 11

CX GvA-Troffee Baal, Saturday 1.1.11

GvA-Trofee
BAAL


GvA-Troffee Baal (GP Sven Nys)
8:30am EST, Saturday, January 1, 2011

Channel 3 Live Stream (with Flemish commentary and forum dialogue box)
Channel 7 Live Stream
Channel 8 Live Stream
Channel 9 Live Stream

NOTE: Live Stream is fickle. Channel 3 is best if you can get it, but there are times when the screen is blank, while it comes in fine on other channels. If one doesn't work, switch to another until you get a channel that shows the stream.

GvA Trofee Standings
1. Kevin Pauwels 106
2. Sven Nys 102
3. Zdenek Stybar (Tsj) 89
4. Bart Wellens 81
5. Niels Albert 80
6. Klaas Vantornout 76
7. Bart Aernouts 71
8. Gerben de Knegt (Ned) 49
9. Tom Meeusen 48
10. Enrico Franzoi (Ita) 47

Let's see if Nys can break his run of bad luck as he draws close to the finish line. Broken pedals, broken chains, bikes pulled out from under him--it's all very dramatic, but it would be nice to see a sprint finish rather than these mechanically driven or error prone outcomes.

Let's also cheer on Jonathan Page. He finally clawed his way into the top ten today at Azencross Loenhout.

It's great to have Stybar back in the running. Two third place finishes after a stint away has him beaming with joy up on the podium.

CX GvA-Troffee Loenhout, Wednesday 12.29.10

GvA-Troffee Loenhout
8:45am EST, Wednesday, December 29th
Channel 3 Live Stream

Standings
1. Kevin Pauwels 87
2. Sven Nys 77
3. Zdenek Stybar 70
4. Bart Wellens 65
5. Klaas Vantornout 62
6. Bart Aernouts 60
7. Niels Albert 55
8. Gerben de Knegt 49
9. Rob Peters 44
10. Enrico Franzoi 44

Superprestige Diegem CX Monday, Dec 27

Tune in Monday, December 27 at 10:55am EST for the 6th Superprestige race of the season in Diegem, Belgium.

Race Live Stream Channel 3
or
Race Live Stream Vt4

Unlike the World Cup, a race organized by national teams, the Superprestige is a trade team series.

Interesting Trivia

• This series, begun in 1983, was won three times by Radomir Simunek, Sr., in 1991, 1992, and 1995. Sadly, Radomir Simunek, Jr. broke his collarbone yesterday in WC Zolder.
  

• Sven Nys has, so far, 51 victories in the Superprestige series, far more than any other racer. The next closest was Roland Liboton, with 21 wins.
  

• Nys won the series 9 times, beginning in 1999. The next closest was Hennie Stamsnijder, who won the series 4 times, the last time in 1989.
  

• It was in the last Superprestige race in Gieten, Netherlands that Nys's pedal came off in his sprint with Meeusen.

• In the 2006-2007 season, Niels Albert came in 1st overall and Zdenek Stybar 2nd -- in the Under 23 series. Nys won 1st overall in the Elite series.
  

• In the 2009-2010 season, Zdenek Stybar came in 1st overall, Niels Albert 2nd and Sven Nys 3rd -- in the Elite series.

• Niels Albert won the Under 23 series three times in a row in '05, '06, and '07. He also won the Junior series in '04.

• Lars Boom won the Junior series in '03.