So You Want to Try Cyclocross

Inspired by our recent cyclocross activities – lending a hand at two introductory clinics, as well as supporting racers at Midnight Ride of Cyclocross – Kristin & Steve are sharing information about this most peculiar, but welcoming, type of bicycle racing. We discuss cyclocross race features and skills, as well as equipment options including bike and tire choices. 

We also share recent experiences with Lyme, how Steve got caught buying something on Amazon, and what is his recommended gearing for gravel bikes.

Transcript

Kristin 0:05

This is Kristen.

Steve 0:06

And I'm Steve, and you are listening to Cycling Together, a podcast about all things bikes, riding, and riding together. Hello. Hi. So we for those of you keeping track, you might have noticed that we were off a week, an extra week. So we are back.

Kristin 0:26

I'm sure no one noticed but us. Right. Today we started. It's Sunday. And we started the day pretty early for us. We are not morning people to go up to the midnight ride of cyclocross, which was the end of a two-week cyclecross reintroduction for us because we helped with a clinic. We helped with two clinics. And then we came went today to cheer on some of the kids from our local mountain bike team as well as other friends. And since it's been all things cyclocross for us, that's what we're going to talk about today.

Steve 1:06

It's a perfect time of year to talk about cyclocross. Yeah. Exactly. Yep. Mid-September.

Kristin 1:10

But before we get into that, let's hit two topics. Let's talk about Lyme.

Steve 1:17

So I had Lyme in July, and now here you are.

Kristin 1:21

I had FOMO for the FOMO. I decided I needed it.

Steve 1:24

Yeah, four days after your diagnosis.

Kristin 1:28

Yeah. And the reason I wanted to bring this up is because uh my symptoms were really weird. I'm gonna say right off the bat. I did not have a tick on me that I remember pulling on the bottom. No, we did not find one on you. Embedded. I've had ticks on me because I'm in the woods all the time. I did not have the bullseye. Right. I had a uh that you found that I found, right? I didn't see that. I had a my elbow was a little swollen, but I could also kind of explain that because I had fallen a couple of weeks ago. And but then my hands, I started waking up in the morning with my hands numb and or tingly. And again, I could explain that. Oh, I'm on my phone too much, oh I'm on the Kindle, oh I slept funny. But then it started to spread, like then it didn't go away in the morning, and then my other hands started to get tingly. And I just Monday morning, I said to you, I'm gonna run out, I'm getting a Lyme test. And you were like, What? We haven't we haven't even had coffee yet, right? Yeah, and I could have called my doctor, let's be clear, my doctor would have been fine with it. But I just had that feeling. I just had a feeling, and I just bought the from Quest Diagnostics. I bought the hundred dollars. You get the blood test a couple of day days later, you get the results. I'll admit, I even kind of forgot that I had gotten I had gone in, like I forgot to check for the results.

Steve 3:02

Well, I was I guess it was Thursday, and you come over and you said, Boy, I have not been feeling good this morning. And then you were like, Wait, I can go and check my results.

Kristin 3:12

I honestly had a moment when I was sitting at my desk where I thought, is this what it feels like when a woman has a heart attack? Because they say it's different for women, like it's both arms, and I had tingling going down both arms, and yeah, I pulled up my results and I was right across the board. So I'm on Doxy. I don't really know what the lesson from this is, other than to say, trust your instincts, get a test if you have any questions. Lime's just weird.

Steve 3:39

Lime is weird, and you're I mean, you're lucky you didn't have the intense pain that I got to, and I think we actually caught yours. Well, we definitely caught yours earlier than than mine.

Kristin 3:49

I think so. I'm all well, we you we had tried. We'd sent you in to the CBS mini clinic, yes, and they thought it was chicken, it was shingles. They thought it was like you were having one puck, which we have had a friend say in hindsight, that's not how that works. Right. Um so we tried because we thought it might be mine.

Steve 4:13

We thought it was like I had pulled a tick out from under me my watch band.

Kristin 4:17

Right. And yeah, and I I mean, my our my doctor's so used to me doing stuff like this. Uh when I wrote him to tell him what I had done, he was like, So you don't have a rash. I was like, nope, I got nothing, but but my gut instincts and a credit card, so yeah. So it's just it's very Lyme is weird, it's it it can do real neurological damage. It took you were like I think you're gonna be diagnosed for too long. I think you're gonna feel better really soon. It I'm gonna say took three days before the tingles ended. So that's what we're saying.

Steve 4:56

Yeah, if you're out in the woods a lot or at all feel weird and you and you've got weird symptoms, then if you're meeting with your doctor and your doctor says something like, Well, none of these symptoms make any sense, which is what your doctor said the first time.

Kristin 5:12

Yeah. Yep. Anyway, speaking of ordering things online.

Steve 5:18

Oh, we're gonna talk about that. So last episode we talked about not ordering bike parts from eBay and Amazon and all the counterfeits and stuff like that. Was that just last episode? So I think it was just last episode. So here we are with a news story. I had a kid's bike come in and he wanted to turn it into a single speed, single speed dirt jumper. Okay. And he had snapped off the hanger, but we needed a hanger for the um chain tensioner for this single speed conversion. Yep. And I wasn't quite making an order anytime soon, and I went on to Amazon. I said, Can I just get this hanger for this old bike on there? Oh, I can. There it is. Okay, you know what? I can have it tomorrow, I can get this thing done. And so I I got this hanger in, and admittingly, it was cheaper than even my cost for a quality wheels manufacturing hanger.

Kristin 6:12

Okay.

Steve 6:13

And what happened? So here I am breaking my world rule about buying some buying a bike part on Amazon, you know, essentially. Yeah. And it comes in and it's defective. They did not tap out threads in the hanger to mount a driller or a chain touch.

Kristin 6:28

So it's just a hanger-shaped object.

Steve 6:30

It was just a hanger-shaped object.

Kristin 6:33

It's my new favorite phrase.

Steve 6:34

Okay, so that's another lesson about things on Amazon.

Kristin 6:38

I know. It's such a problem. All right, well, let's uh take a quick break. And when we come back, we work we're gonna talk about Psychocross. All right, we're back. And obviously, we don't have a time have time for a full in-depth breakdown of all things Psychocross. So to steal the name of the clinic we did, we'll call this a gentle welcome to Psychocross. We're gonna hit some of the basics.

Steve 7:11

Yes, and I think what a lot of the items that we we touched at with our uh clinic. It's just good to go over here and sort of talk about what what the race is and and how you should probably, if you've ever been curious about it, go try your first race.

Kristin 7:26

Yeah. But let's first uh tell people what cyclocross is for maybe those who don't know or who don't live in an area like we do that has cyclocross easily accessible.

Steve 7:39

Okay, so it is cyclocross. I don't say it wrong. It comes out as cycle cross many times, but it's cyclocross with an O in the middle. And USA Cycling uh defines this as a unique non-Olympic discipline of cycling, because it's not in the Olympics, uh, that can be best described as a cross between road cycling, mountain biking, and steeplechase. And riders start in a mass, there's a mass start, and you must navigate through both paved and off-road terrain, mostly off-road, and oftentimes dismounting bikes to go over barriers or climbs or stairs or whatever obstacles the the promoters can toss at you.

Kristin 8:19

So I was talking to a parent today who they were new to mountain bike racing, and they their son was doing their first cyclocross race, and they were like, How did this even start? And I was like, Ah, I know this. I looked it up, I had it for the cyclocross, which is so one theory is that European road racers in the early 1900s would race each other to the next town over from them, and that they were allowed to cut through farmers' fields and over fences or to take other shortcuts in order to make it to the next town first. That's one of the theories we've heard. And apparently, when the 1910 Tour de France winner attributed his win to Cyclocross, that's when it really started to take off in France. So it's been a long around longer than I think, than I think we get to be.

Steve 9:10

Yeah, and I don't know how long it's been around in its current format, but it sounds like for a long time.

Kristin 9:16

And it's huge in Europe.

Steve 9:17

Belgium is the hotspot of cycling, it is a major, major event on the weekends there. Yeah, thousands of people at thousands of people at these festival events for these races. Yep. They're the Belgian uh superstars of Cyclocross are just mega superstars there. And and yeah, and be and because it's really European focused, and that's where it really is, and it's very niche everywhere else, that's why it's not an Olympic sport. There aren't enough countries and enough people doing it to make it an Olympic sport, really. Right.

Kristin 9:54

Yeah, because it's pretty niche.

Steve 9:57

It should be an Olympic sport, ideally, because it's phenomenal for the Olympics in terms of perfect. It's it's a perfect, yes, uh to to slide into the Olympics, but it's just not enough. Right. Not enough countries.

Kristin 10:09

And one of the reasons we're saying it's perfect is because of how it's set up. So let's talk about the basics. So um, as we said, this is a timed race and it's on a small course. It's what one and a half to two miles regulation rise. And it's very twisty. So it's not just a circle, it's very it's on a field, it's very twisty. So it's really fun to watch. Like for the parents that were there today. If I knew the parent, I would be like, you want to go over there to watch because you can see your son come going up, going down, twisting around without reading.

Steve 10:48

Yep, there's many courses where you could be standing there and you could see the racer at every single moment of the course, even if they're far away across the field, you're st you can still see them. We had one section today where there was some trees where you couldn't, but otherwise you could see them everywhere.

Kristin 11:04

Right. The other reason it's would be so good is it's it's timed. Yes. Right? Yep. And how long? Give me the times.

Steve 11:13

Uh anywhere between uh 30 to 60 minutes.

Kristin 11:18

Okay.

Steve 11:18

And the timing defines the define- the timing defines the number of laps.

Kristin 11:23

Yes.

Steve 11:23

So the leader, when the leader comes through on their first lap, the referees will say, okay, they came through in say eight minutes on that lap. And when this is a 40-minute race, so we're gonna we're gonna have them do uh, you know, four laps.

Kristin 11:39

Okay. Yep. Right. But if you get lapped, then you're done.

Steve 11:44

You're done behind the you're always done behind the leader.

Kristin 11:46

Right. So the race is always about 40 minutes. Like you're not gonna accidentally be out there for two hours.

Steve 11:51

Right, right.

Kristin 11:52

Yep, no matter how slow you go, you're not which was kind of as we were talking to the kids today, getting them ready and kind of going over that rule. It was almost like, oh, okay, so no matter what, I'm done in 40 minutes. I was like, Yeah, and you've done two-hour mountain bike races. So this is you can do it as fast or as slow as you want. Right. Just just keep going. Yep. And one of them was funny, his dad's on 545 Velo, right? And he's a Dover Demon. And he passed these two guys from 5'4, and then later on I saw that the men had passed him again. So I'm talking to him, and he's like, Yeah, I was I was all prepared to take it back, but I ran out of laps. Yeah, right. Like he he had said, I actually kind of pulled back on my effort thinking I had one more lap. And it can be a little hard, especially in the men's fields when there's so many racers in this one race. We had the cat five men beginner wet, and we had the high school students. Was that it? And there was one other group, I think. Well, whatever. Yes, the 40 plus men. So you don't really know. You get all these people on the on the course with you. You don't know if you've been lapped, you don't know. So he just missed, you know, he he he tried to get too strategic. Then something else that's a little unique. Was it unique? What happens when you're riding, if you get a flat tire, some kind of mechanical thing?

Steve 13:23

So there is a there is a pit uh that you can go into and you can have you can have spare wheels in there, you can have an entire spare bike. Yep, uh, you can go in there for just for you know for mechanical help. So so as you come around every lap, you have the opportunity to go into the pit. And if you do go into the pit, you have to take service.

Kristin 13:46

Oh, you can't just ride through it and be like, never mind.

Steve 13:49

Yeah, so and but you'll see this in professional races where if it's a muddy race, they're gonna change a bike every single lap.

Kristin 13:55

Yep.

Steve 13:56

So they'll go into the pit and they'll get a handoff of their bike. So they'll they'll dismount their bike on the fly, get their new bike. So basically, they never stop running and moving.

Kristin 14:05

Yep.

Steve 14:05

And then and then exit the pit. Uh, you cannot go backwards at any point on the course. So there will be uh an entrance and an exit to the pit. Yes. And but if you pass that, if you pass the pit by even like one foot, you cannot go backwards. You have to now go, you know, run, say all the way around the course back to the pit.

Kristin 14:28

Or at least half. Today's pit was two-sided.

Steve 14:30

No, it wasn't. It wasn't yeah, it was single-sided. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Kristin 14:34

I think he's wrong, but I'll I'll agree with you. I did see one woman in the cat four race switch her bike up twice. Really? Yeah. She had she had a pit bike, and then we had in the cat's like perfect conditions today. Yeah, I don't remember what was going on. And then we had the cat five. We saw someone on our friend's pit bike. Yes. We were like, oh yeah, he fell. He's covered in dirt.

Steve 15:00

He was covered in dirt, yeah.

Kristin 15:01

He couldn't clip in, unfortunately. He was like, This pit bike's not gonna work because my different cleats. So little incompatibility there. All right, and then they mentioned getting off. It's funny, the description you read said oftentimes dismounting, but it's required.

Steve 15:20

It's that I was gonna say there was a weird there is there, it is required to have a feature that that makes you dismount once per lap.

Kristin 15:28

Just once?

Steve 15:29

Well, I guess it's twice per lap.

Kristin 15:31

I think it's twice.

Steve 15:32

So so there's this thing called barriers in cyclocross, which is a series of about maximum of 40 centimeters high. Yeah. And usually it's sort of a couple of two by eights um stacked together, and they're gonna be 15 feet apart or so. Okay. So it's always a double barrier system, and this is where almost everybody is going to dismount the bike, jump with their bike over the barriers, and then remount after that. There are people who can now bunny hop that, and so that's becoming a thing. We can talk about bunny hopping for a second, and I think and I encourage everybody to go onto YouTube and type cyclocross Joey. Oh, because that's uh that is a classic uh barrier video, all of about 10 seconds long. Okay, but it's a good one to go look up. So if bunny hopping can be faster, if you are good at it, every single barrier, every single lap, if you mess up just one barrier on one lap in that bunny hop, bobble it, hit it wrong, even slow down a little bit, you have now lost more time than if you had just run the barriers.

Kristin 16:44

Well, that's really the strategy of cyclocross. And I remember Helen Wyman when I took the um high tea with Helen clinic years ago, she's the British national champion, and she always said, it's about getting you and your bike through the course in a way that is fastest for you and your bike. So you can watch somebody else ride the sand and they may be very fast at it. But if you know you are you could run it faster, that's what you do. You get off your bike, yeah, that's the better choice for you. And that would be the better choice for you. And I have seen people bunny hop slowly only to have somebody run past them carrying their bike. So yeah, there's the flare of it, and then there's the what's what's fastest for you. Right. And can you consistently do it? And they can try to force you off with logs, but barriers are staircases.

Steve 17:38

Yeah, the staircases are common.

Kristin 17:40

Yep. So there's a lot of things they can do, but the barriers are the most common. When we were talking about doing this clinic with our friend Jeff, who was on the show, is he was he pointed out, I really didn't think about this, that with the growth in gravel bikes, there is now a new potential audience for cyclocross. There is, yeah, because when we started cyclocross, there were cyclocross bikes.

Steve 18:11

Yes, there were there were not gravel bikes. Right. If you were doing so-called gravel riding, I can air quote that, but it was on your cyclocross bike.

Kristin 18:22

Right. Yeah, but today we're really trying to encourage a ride what you have kind of philosophy. So, you know, let's talk about the bike.

Steve 18:31

All right. So let's talk about a cyclocross bike. Yes. So traditionally, a cyclocross bike is essentially a road bike, and the difference being between this, between that and a road bike is that the usually the bottom bracket was a little higher so that you could go over obstacles with a little more clearance. Okay. The steering was a lot sharper than a road bike, which would be a little more stable. Okay. Um, because you this was meant for slower speeds around tight 90-degree corners, accelerating out of those corners. It was it was purpose-built for that kind of twisty course.

Kristin 19:06

Yeah.

Steve 19:07

And then the gearing on it, I mean, a lot of the gearing around when we were racing was still the same as road, although it was just coming into where one bye was being popular.

Kristin 19:20

Yes.

Steve 19:20

And so there was sort of that crossover at the time when we were racing a lot, about what, 10 years ago or so. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so now what then what happened is the gravel, and and the professionals can only use 33 millimeter tires. So a lot of grav or a lot of cyclocross bikes were were just made to fit 33, real usually they could fit 35, and in the biggest cases about 40 millimeter tires.

Kristin 19:51

Okay.

Steve 19:52

And then along came gravel. So gravel lowered those bottom brackets a little bit. It they They be slackened out the head tubes a little bit more. They were really more traditionally like a road bike that could fit a bigger tire, and now way bigger tires is what the is the pref preference for gravel bikes.

Kristin 20:12

Yep. It's funny you say that because I remember so we had focused cyclocross bikes. And then you started riding your cyclocross bike out in the woods, mixed terrain, under under biking, and you would come home, you're like, it was so much fun. And I would do it, and I'd be like, This kind of sucks. I don't like it that much. It's not that comfortable. I don't like riding this bike in the woods. And then you got me a different bike that you said was more slack and it was more, and it it was, it was much more comfortable.

Steve 20:47

It was more it was more stable, it had bigger tires, it had easier gearing. Right. And that's when you sort of galloped.

Kristin 20:54

And that's when I was like, okay, I now understand what you ding dongs are doing out here. Fast forward, a lot of those bike manufacturers are not either making cyclocross bikes anymore.

Steve 21:08

No, the market's gravel. So everybody's making a gravel bike. Right. There's a handful of brands still making true cyclocross bikes. Right.

Kristin 21:16

So how do you know if your gravel bike, how do you make your gravel bike cyclocross ready?

Steve 21:23

I would say, I mean, everybody, first of all, on a gravel bike can just use that for cyclocross. Okay, it is gonna be perfectly appropriate for it. And you're in some cases you're really not gonna know what you're missing, right? So and you also in cyclocross, there is no bike restriction. So this is where use what you have. Ride what you want. If you want to ride your full suspension mountain bike, go right ahead.

Kristin 21:50

Yeah.

Steve 21:51

Right? And and so that's the great thing about cyclocross. And with the current crop of road bikes taking bigger tires, so now most road bikes will take at least 32 millimeter, and on sometimes 35. And 30, I mean, right there, you can find a cyclocross appropriate tires in that range to just use your road bike now for cross.

Kristin 22:16

We had two people show up at the second of our clinics on road bikes. And road bikes. They had pedals.

Steve 22:22

Modern road bikes.

Kristin 22:23

Modern road bikes. They had put flats on because they normally were on look pedals. They did recognize those were the wrong pedals.

Steve 22:29

Yeah, road pedals were wrong.

Kristin 22:30

And it was funny, they were there because they had been watching it on YouTube. They'd been watching Cyclocross. She dragged him there, and then she was like, Look at him, he's having so much fun. So they had a couple of moments. Okay, we need new pedals, new shoes, new tires. Right. But bike solid, right? Like that they they realized the bikes were probably usable. Yeah, absolutely. They did have a two by in the front. So they had two. That's fine.

Steve 23:00

I mean, that's how all cross bikes traditionally were.

Kristin 23:02

Right. And the only the only potential downside to that was when you put the sometimes you can drop your chain.

Steve 23:09

Like I don't remember what was the yeah, but it's it's not it that's more comes into a hard uh putting your bike down too hard. So there's a little bit of technique there that you would, but it's it's not that common.

Kristin 23:23

Right. And then mountain bikes, as you said, can totally be ridden. We had one one of our teenagers was on one today. We had in the women's race, you had a couple. So it really is ride, ride what you have. It's really tempting to feel like you have to keep up with the the gear, but you really don't have to be able to do that.

Steve 23:45

Yeah, because most people are going to be on some sort of cycle cross gravel bike type of bike. Yeah. And they are the best choice.

Kristin 23:54

Right. Right. Because in particular, and we'll talk about the the skills, but when you're picking it up and down, that's when you're like, oh, that's heavy. That's a that's definitely a heavier bike. So we talked about the fact that you can put on wider tires, but let's talk about the kind of tires. Because so I was riding today at midnight ride. I did a couple of loops, and I immediately said, Oh, these are the wrong tires.

Steve 24:19

Oh no, when I put your bike in the car last night, I said, Well, she's only going to be doing practice laps. She's not racing, but boy, are these the wrong tires.

Kristin 24:28

Right. Why are they the wrong tires?

Steve 24:30

So you had 12 G1 all arounds, which is just basically the exact same micro knob that goes all the way around.

Kristin 24:38

Yeah.

Steve 24:38

And one of my favorite tires for a lot of reasons, but not a cyclocross tire. So that is not a tire that grips well in grass.

Kristin 24:49

Which is the salt as well.

Steve 24:50

And this is a almost an entirely grass course, and you need to be making fast 90-degree turns on grass. And so this was a course that required uh edge knobs. So I I was on a what cross race we'll call a file tread tire. Okay. And a file tread tire means the center is very smooth or has just micro knobs or just some sort of ribbing of some sort. And then often the side walls will have larger uh knobs that protrude out.

Kristin 25:23

Okay.

Steve 25:23

So that's what I was on, and I was like, oh, these like this is my gravel tire, but boy were they great cross tires. Okay. I mean, I was railing the turns. The side knobs I had were just digging me in really, really well. And the whole time, and my first lap out there, I'm going around and I'm just oh, I'm like, oh, this is awesome. These tires would have been perfect if I was racing. Right. And and then I thought about you. I thought about them. You immediately said, Oh, she's gonna be slipping all over the place.

Kristin 25:52

I was just cautious. I just, I mean, I wasn't racing. I was going out first, I went out with the two boys, and so we just talked through some of the techniques. But as I was, you know, going around and pedaling through the turns, I was like, Yep, nope, these aren't holding on to much.

Steve 26:07

And your pressure was also too high because we had put your pressure up a little higher for your ride that you did yesterday. And I because and I also knew that. Yeah, you would have been a little better if your pressure was low.

Kristin 26:17

Yeah.

Steve 26:18

And and in cross, you will find that you are trying to go almost as low of pressure as you can get for that grip. Okay. But there's that balance point that one, there could be sharp obstacles like roots out on a course, and you can't you don't want to bang your rim. Yep. So that's the first thing to sort of test in warm-up that you don't bang your rim. And the other is that you get too low, your tires also can feel kind of like they're about to roll off the rim in the corners, and you want to avoid that as well.

Kristin 26:47

Yeah, yep. All right, so that's the the gear, and we've been talking a little bit about the special the the skills that are cycle cross specific.

Steve 26:57

Yeah, let's talk about the main skills that we did in the clinic that once you you just practice those, and you should go try your first cross.

Kristin 27:04

Yeah, and I really want to give Jeff credit for this because he was like, Look, I mean, you know how to ride your bike. Right. Unlike road ride, the thing that's different about cyclocross is there's no recreational cyclocross, right? You can road ride recreationally or you can race, you can mountain bike recreationally or you can race. Yes. There's no like, I'm just gonna go out and ride in a field and jump things, right? That's just not a thing. And so he said there's four things that you need to know. And if you can do that, then you're ready for cyclocross. Yep. It doesn't need to be a long clinic, you don't need to keep coming back to me. Just then go do this in your front yard. Right. All right, so number one dismounting.

Steve 27:45

Getting off your bike while it's moving, getting off your bike while it's moving, which is basically uh a movement of swinging your right leg over the saddle, still clipped in on your left pedal, and as you're you're at speed, approaching the the item, like the barrier that you need to dismount for, and then right at the last moment flicking your heel out, unclipping that left pedal, and then going right into a running motion.

Kristin 28:14

Right. So that's number one. And once you learn how to do that, um I s once I learned how to do that, I think that's the only way I get off my bike now. It's just cool.

Steve 28:23

I think a lot of people actually probably can do this and they just don't realize they can do this.

Kristin 28:30

Well, they also probably just stop. The it's the it's the threading together the other pieces, right? So yes, you would do this and then you would just stop. But we're gonna take it to the next step, right? So we're you do the flicking motion and then you continue to now run, right? Hopefully maintaining the same speed. Maybe jumping over barriers, yep. Yes, maintaining the same speed.

Steve 28:52

Right.

Kristin 28:53

So that's skill number two.

Steve 28:55

The the no that's well, that's still on the Oh, the skill number two is so if you're going over the barriers, yes. Skill number two would be the carrying of the bike.

Kristin 29:03

Yes.

Steve 29:04

So now you have to take your bike and you have to get over items. So now you're on foot and you have to lift up your bike. Uh with one of the carriers we call the suitcase carry because you're basically lifting it up like a suitcase with right.

Kristin 29:16

Yeah, and but the big thing is your natural instinct when you pick it up is the saddle ends up in your armpit.

Steve 29:24

This is a height specific thing. Yeah. And we talked about that.

Kristin 29:27

Absolutely, and immediately it's easily correctable, but they like I was working with a a young woman today, and she picked it up, and I just kind of moved her arm to the inside, she immediately got it.

Steve 29:39

Yep, she needed her saddle on the outside of her elbow.

Kristin 29:42

Because it restricts you from getting it up maybe as high as you need it to get over the barriers, right?

Steve 29:47

And the taller you are, the less the half. The more room you have to lift up your bike. So I can get my bike over barrier height under my arm if I want to. Exactly.

Kristin 29:59

But a good habit to get into is speed.

Steve 30:03

But speed, actually, you see the photos of me. So now the bike is actually kind of out to my side a little bit. Yes. Because I am going through the barrier basically at the same speed and running with it the same speed that I would be riding.

Kristin 30:17

Yes. In the old days when you did that. In the old days. Okay. So now you have it up in the suitcase. You're going to run over these two barriers. If you're short, you might even step on them to get over them. I saw that a couple of times today. And that's okay to do because they are usually very solidly built. And then you get to the other side of the barriers and the final skill is the remounting.

Steve 30:43

And this is the hardest one.

Kristin 30:44

This is the weirdest one.

Steve 30:45

Because you people don't do this for any other purpose but cross.

Kristin 30:50

Yeah. Yeah. Which is to jump or slide back on your saddle at speed. At speed. Yes. And I say jump or slide because you and I do teach it a little bit differently. You recommend trying to get a little air, not a lot, but a little in part to break through that barrier in your brain.

Steve 31:11

Yes. Because this is a this is the first time you do it, it's sort of this leap of faith, too. Yes. It's very awkward. You mean I'm so you have both hands on the hoods. So, and and you're running with alongside your bike on the left hand side. So now you're running on your bike, both hands on the hoods. Now you need to basically remount onto the saddle at what at full running space speed.

Kristin 31:35

Right. Yeah. Yeah. It it's a little, it's a little intimidating, you know. And the the fact of the matter is, there's no style points. Just get on the bloody bike and go. If you need to stop and get on, fine. I think one thing I saw a lot when we were teaching people was there's a real inclination to try to clip in as fast as possible. And when I've said to all of them, don't worry about that.

Steve 32:00

Yep, don't worry about that.

Kristin 32:02

Just get the get the bike going, mash your feet down, and then you can figure out where your feet are supposed to be rather than worrying about like keeping your foot face down, trying to figure out where your feet are. So there is a little bit of faith that like you know they're down there, you know, you know your foot will get in there at some point.

Steve 32:22

Yeah. I mean, obviously, the better you are at the skill of re-clipping in, the better. We can talk about uh sort of flat pedals if you're sort of coming from the mountain biking side. And again, sort of like why 95% are gonna be on a on a cross or gravel bike, it's gonna be the same way for clipping in as well. And it is overall better to to clip into your pedals than it is to use flats. And if you're coming from the mountain bike side and you use flats, you probably have metal pins on your flats. You are going to do some, and if you're a learning cross, you're gonna do some real damage to yourself with those pins. So it is even almost a safety thing.

Kristin 33:07

I can't say you aren't gonna do some damage to yourself even without the pins. When I first started, I had a bad habit of I would get back on the saddle and my feet, my legs would just kind of swing down and I would slam one of my shins into the pedal because I wasn't good at at that mash thing. So I so as you will remember, I wore shin pads for the first year, and um, I'll never forget being at Gloucester and hearing them call up the shin pad class of erasers, but I was like, you know, again, there's no rules here, and I they were I was bashing up my shins, so I might as well give that a try. And that's it, those are the skills, those are the skills dismount, remount, carry barriers. Yes, like there are others, even talking today to um our teammate, he had taught his girlfriend about shouldering, and I was like, which is another way to carry the bike.

Steve 34:05

Yeah, and they're putting steep hills or or stairs that you need to shoulder your bike and run up while you're shouldering. Yeah. That is another skill, but it it is not something to it's not one of the core skills. That's well, that's what I said.

Kristin 34:21

I said to her, I was like, you do not need to shoulder today. There is nothing shoulderable. And when we did the second clinic, that couple said to me, Do we get to learn how to shoulder? And I was like, Oh, you really are watching European cycle cross. If you had seen shouldering, it it's a it's a fun skill to have. Um, as you said, it does, it's really good if you have to run through something or run up something. But but yeah, those are it.

Steve 34:45

Cornering is a big skill as well, but it's it's not a skill, it's a skill you can work on. It's not a skill that's gonna prohibit you from getting out there and and having a fun race.

Kristin 34:55

Yeah, the cornerings just when I was talking to the mountain bike boys today, you know, their instinct was to hit the corner and stop pedaling, right? And just which works great in mountain biking, but in cyclocross can mean you're gonna start just sliding. And so I was explaining to them that just to practice pedaling through the turns. The funny thing about cyclocross is it's not that fast, right? Like when we say fast, it's not that fast. It's one of the reasons it's such a welcoming type of racing. And I was saying to them, you may end up pedaling and braking at the same time because you have too much speed, but the pedaling is gonna give you the traction and to give you the and to give you the the the power to the city. The momentum out of the out of the channel. Yeah, exactly. So, but again, all very practicable. You you'll learn your your way. You know, we talked about how to read a course. The other thing is you do get to well, you can't really go, you know, a week or two before a race. You can go before the race to pre-ride the course. What else do we need to know about cycle cross?

Steve 36:06

So let's just, I guess, go over how you sign up. Yes, and that would be bike reg.

Kristin 36:12

Yep.

Steve 36:12

Bike reg has all the cross races. You can filter by your region, uh by your state, and you can find all the races. Yep. And it is a niche sport, so there are going to be certain areas of the country like New England, which has a cross race that is a good, not you know, not a far drive away from you every single weekend. Yeah. And I think Pacific Northwest Northwest is like that. They have a lot of races in California, but then there's other races or area other areas that just don't have races.

Kristin 36:43

I know. Well, we can only do what we can do.

Steve 36:45

Right. And then crossresults.com is where all of the results from these races are aggregated.

Kristin 36:52

Yeah.

Steve 36:53

And you can see stats, you can see all of your different times for each lap that you did in that race if you're interested in that.

Kristin 37:01

Yep.

Steve 37:02

And you can see all the racers around you, and it'll start to rank them, and it'll it'll start to give you nemesis in terms of people that you have are finishing very near each time. Yep. And because that's what you'll find if you start doing a lot of races, you'll find there are certain people who you might beat a cut by a couple places one week, and they beat you by a couple places the next week, and that sort of becomes your almost inter-race competition.

Kristin 37:27

Yeah.

Steve 37:28

Are those people?

Kristin 37:29

Yep. And you also, one of the things I always liked about cross results that we do not have the equivalent of for mountain bike racing is that all the races are there, all the results are there, and all the photos are there. So a lot of photographers will either, either professional or amateur around here, will show up, they'll take photos, they'll share the link to uh cross results. So you can download pictures, you can buy pictures. I really missed that when, you know, with mountain bike racing, I always have to go find the race organizer. Hopefully they had a photographer. If they didn't have a photographer, you didn't really know where someone else might be sharing things. So I always really liked the community or around the photography of that. And you're right, you ended up, you end up with like your your little core crew. It was it was fun showing up today. I'm I'm not sad I didn't race, but it was wild to show up to see all these people that I used to race with, which was really a blast. There are other resources for someone who wants to know more about cross from smart people like uh you have the Jeremy Powers Book Across.

Steve 38:45

So that was a series of what YouTube videos, which are still up. Not technically a book, uh they are a little older now, but completely applicable. There's yeah, the techniques have not changed.

Kristin 38:56

It was interesting. It was a very interesting thing. I was watching it recently. And then so Jeremy Powers is a past professional cycloclusion. National champion, right, from here in New England. And then we we have quite a few well-known racers. We have Adam Meyerson, and he was recently on an episode of the Fast Talk podcast. So if you want current, recent information where he talks about race day strategies like covering equipment, course inspection, warm-up. So some of the things that we didn't talk about today, because again, this is only an hour-ish podcast, right? Right. But it was really fun. Today was really fun. Even if you're not thinking about racing, highly recommend going to watch.

Steve 39:42

Oh, yeah.

Kristin 39:43

But today was really just a fun day of racing. Every 45 minutes you had a new crew out there. And the littles, can we just for a minute talk about the little racers who like ate, nine, ten, and the barrier was up to their belly button and they trying to get. The bike over it, ah, dead. Anyway, all right. Well, let's take a break and we will come back with a listener question. We'll wrap it up. Okay. All right, we're back. We got a couple of questions and comments in the last couple of weeks. First, we had someone who asked, What would be your recommended gearing for an Allied Able, which is uh Allied Cycle Works gravel bike.

Steve 40:34

That was a question, but that doesn't my answer to that depends. Well, I do I do give a lot of depends, but no, it's a gravel bike and it would apply to any gravel bike frame.

Kristin 40:48

Okay. So but you sell allied. So let's talk about the at Okay.

Steve 40:54

For gravel, I am a one by person.

Kristin 40:56

Okay.

Steve 40:58

And I'm also an Axis person, SRAM Axis electronic shifting. Yes. So my first recommendation is then it's where it depends, because the current Axis 13 speed stuff is has a 10 through 46 cassette.

Kristin 41:16

Okay.

Steve 41:17

Which is good, but it's not the 52 cog of an Eagle cassette. So the question is where are you riding it? How are you riding it? What kind of events are you gonna do? And then figure out if they need if the 46-tooth large cog is is big enough or if they need the 52.

Kristin 41:36

Right. Yep.

Steve 41:37

So that would be the answer to that.

Kristin 41:39

So that would be the answer to the dependent.

Steve 41:41

And then yes, and then the able takes 2.2 up to 2.25 tires. So it takes big tires, and I certainly nowadays recommend in that 50 to 60 millimeter range, which is in that range. Why the comfort and the grip are just amazing. And it's a a lot of it's the comfort.

Kristin 42:02

It's funny. We have a a gentleman who just picked up his able. He's gonna be riding it at gravel nationals. He's it's got what is it? He has 2.25, Vittorious. 2.25. He did say that it was a little draggy on the pavements.

Steve 42:22

Yep. But otherwise, otherwise blowing by people.

Kristin 42:26

He said he felt completely confident and in control.

Steve 42:29

So we talked about you know me today running around the course on my gravel bike and how good I thought it was, and I was on 50 millimeter tires, my gravel tires. Something I would have never thought about in the day to use on a cross course. When we were using 33, we were using 33s, and then I went to 35s near the end. You know, like, oh, I'm going to a big tire. Well, did you know? And here I yes, and then now it's been a while since I have raced, but I was trying to do a lot of this course at a race pace, yeah, and I was just sort of stunned at like where is this traction coming from? And it it was really low pressure on really wide tires.

Kristin 43:13

Can we talk also about this thing that so when you say you were on 35 millimeters?

Steve 43:19

It's basically 35 millimeter wide.

Kristin 43:21

Because those are based on road measurements, but then you said you were on 2.25 because those are based on mountain bike measurements.

Steve 43:30

So mountain bike tires use inches and road and gravel and cross use millimeters, but you will a lot of times see nowadays the mountain bike tires will also give a millimeter rating. So you might see 57, right, instead of which would be like a 2.2 tire.

Kristin 43:54

Okay, thank you. Yes. I love this industry.

Steve 43:56

There's always a new version there.

Kristin 43:59

Okay, that's great. Speaking of this, the good transition, we got a question. I'm checking my saddlebag for my gravel bike. My tires are tubeless, but I'm carrying a tube for backup. What size tube do I carry? My tires are 700 by 45C. I have a 700 by 20 to 28 tube on hand. Would that be enough or would I want to go bigger?

Steve 44:26

So you don't you definitely want to go bigger with your tube. You want your tube to match your tire size. Okay. But if you've ever inflated a tube outside of a tire, a road tube will just expand way bigger than that, than a 45 millimeter tire. Okay. And so it's capable of doing it. The problem is it gets really thin and more fragile as it gets as it expands. Now you've expanded that tube beyond its intended range. Right. And so that's where it's just not going to be it you could puncture more easily with that tube. It can work though in an emergency backup situation.

Kristin 45:08

Right. But ideally, the tube should match the tire. Yes. Yes.

Steve 45:14

Now, this and it's also a little bit different in terms of this is for gravel bike, they said, right? Yes. And but if you're on a road bike and you're using 35 millimeter tires, but you're carrying a tube that was rated for 18 to 23, uh, that gets a little bit more different. It will again, it will still do it, but because you're going to an even higher pressure on the road bike, you're you're sort of overdoing it a little more than you would on a Grabba bike.

Kristin 45:43

All right. Yep. So they should match. All right. Well, I think that's it for today. Okay. We got through it. Cycling Together with Kristen and Steve is a production of Steve the Bike Guy, an independent bicycle shop in Eastern Massachusetts and Sundon Marketing.

Steve 46:00

If you like the show, please leave a review or share with a friend for show notes, links, or leave a comment, uh question or topic suggestion, please visit cycling together.bike.

Kristin 46:09

You can follow the shop on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok at SteveTheBike Guy. Thank you for joining the ride.

Steve 46:16

Okay, see you next time. Fine, that was bad.

Kristin 46:25

Wow.

Steve 46:26

Yeah.

Kristin 46:27

I know. But you know what I am using. Yep.