Words by Fabian Merino (Insta: @chileanvision)
The cyclocross thing is crazy. The first time I heard about it was last year, just after I got a road bike. My roommate at the time just bought a custom build for cross— an All-City Nature Boy CX single-speed. It really caught my attention; it looked like the best party bike, and I was super jealous.
After that I watched some races, just so I could understand what the discipline was like when it came to professional racing. Even after watching a handful of races, I still couldn’t really understand what was going on. I’d watch these gnarly looking European-CX races, and confusion run through my head:, crashes, broken chains, insane sprint at the start, dismounting and remounting after jumping over barriers, racers running up stairs hauling their bikes on their shoulders… Confused, yes, but I instantly enjoyed the idea of this whole CX thing in a really fucked up (re: weird) way.
Broad Street Cycles hosted a Semi-Prestige series December of last year, and that was my first CX race, and the second time I rode a cross bike. I had the best time of my life. People were handing out beers, cookies, and some little jerks had coffee in beer cans making riders think it was beer (you guys are assholes). The vibes was great, honestly; I’m pretty sure everybody had a huge smile across their face the whole time, even after falling and having a pile of mud in their face. A hugely overdue thanks to Jeff for letting me borrow his Focus for that race — I was stoked.
After road racing this year my plan was to start racing cyclocross. The money situation, however, wasn’t looking so good; training and racing from April to September took a toll on finances. Broad Street Cycles came through, however, and were hugely generous in hooking me up with an awesome Felt F5X bicycle, ready to race for me. I missed the first Cross On The Rocks race, but I started riding this thing as soon as I got it (the morning after at 7am), and practiced as much technical stuff as I could within the 5 days I had before the Bear Mountain race.
Bear Mountain was the first COTR race I’ve ever been. The number of racers blew my mind (270?!). My category alone had 55 starters or something like that — it was a huge turnout. I was stuck at the back because I missed the first race, and was immediately annoyed at all the people crashing in front of me in those first few laps. My heart seriously felt like it was going to stop during the race, everything was in pain, but it was so much fun. The course, it should be mentioned, was absolutely unreal; Drew MacKenzie did a phenomenal job.
Speaking of Drew, I would like to thank him for putting on the Wednesday night CX race practices. So many people show up to these things, and the courses that he builds out of a simple field are awesome. Because of me being a little baby and being sore from riding I’ve missed a few of them, but every single one I’ve been to has been a lot of fun. I’ve helped out building the courses a bit, too, which is a ton of fun. If you get the chance, I highly recommend giving Drew a hand with setting up a course!
The last race I did was the Kona Kup Provincials in Nanaimo. I felt great off the bat, and felt like I was riding really well. Within 3 laps, though, my brakes were completely gone, and I was crashing so much in my last lap that I decided to abandon the race. It sucked, but I would really like my collarbone, back and knees to stay in one piece. After I made my way back to the BSC tent I didn’t feel so bad about — I saw well over 10 people retire for the very same reason.
Up next on the calendar is Farmer Bill’s race in Port Alberni. I’m really excited for this, let’s hope everything goes well and the fun keeps running through everyone’s head.