Cyclocross is so backwards that it keeps surprising me. Today was a rainy, slushy day. Yesterday it was cold and decent for skiing. Then it warmed to 45F and light rain overnight. The sidewalk was icy this morning then turned to slush. It was NASTY out. Overcast. Who would want to go out in such weather?
I had a little neighborhood CX race planned for Bancroft park in Lansing. Hardly anyone is doing CX this year around town so the event was “subject to interest.” An hour before the start I noticed that 5 people had said “yes” to it. Hmmm… I had forgotten about it. With such an ugly day, who would go outside? I was assuming a total cancellation. Then Johnny reminded me of it and suddenly I thought… Hey, wait a minute. Cyclocross is ABOUT bad weather. It’s not bad when it’s bad, it’s good! I mean, slushy snow can be too deep and just all-wrong, but this was like 1/2-inch. It had been frozen, now was wet. Dang: perfect ‘cross weather, really! The thought of light-rain, tho, was rather too much. I went outside. It wasn’t actually raining. Just wet.
So I drove over and, sure enough, some freaks were there! So we rode some laps. We even rode hard sometimes. We did the course. We did the offcambers. We slid. We screwed up. We wiped out. It was wet. We didn’t get very muddy, actually, or that wet. Our bikes gathered slush. My cleats stopped working but freed up with some whacking. My first lap around I got off the saddle going down some of the off-camber drops, and tripoded. I had no idea what would happen. Actually, the tires gripped quite nicely and slid predictably. …Our creek crossing got too big, tho, so we had to dismount and leap it. Fine. We made the steep climb a few times. Peeled out and dismounted more. It was some mayhem. It took skill. It felt rewarding.
All good!
Perfect CX weather.
It’s sometimes hard to get my brain to bend around it.
Autumn and late autumn and early winter can all have aspects of misery to them by normal reality. But the dark is turned to fun with a nifty course and headlamps. And all that bad weather makes for interesting bike challenges. So what’s bad is good! …Oct to Dec is in good hands on the CX-brainwave.
Afterward, tho, you better put on a heavy coat and get a hot beverage into your gullet. …That’s the way to do THAT.
