I am interested in cyclocross as a way to have fun and improve my technical skills without having to get a mountain bike. So when I saw the blog post advertising the “Super Westige” cyclocross event, with the option of a day license, I was intrigued. I could, in theory, do this race on a road bike. A quick email to the organiser, Greg Merison, got a friendly response. Yes, I could do it on my road bike, even on skinny tyres. There would be no carrying of the bike required, I could push it in a difficult spot or lift it over a barrier. The women’s race was 30 minutes. How bad could it be?
I did no extra preparation for the event, apart from training the kids to cheer, we covered that in depth on Friday 🙂
Sunday was beautiful weather, how refreshing to set off at the civilised time of 1pm for the race! The lap-based race meant the kids and family could easily watch.
Success Hill in Bassendean is a lovely treed reserve on the river. The kids made a beeline for the playground. The two decent grassed hills on the left and right were covered with red and white tape and course markers. I could see a few people riding the route already, so once I registered I did too.
It looked confusing but once on course there were plenty of small arrow markers to follow. The compact course was cleverly laid out to make the most of the hills. There were switch backs, barriers, and some long turns through the sand! There was also a sandy track through the bush and back. The sand was challenging, quite a few places I had to put a foot down or hop off and push. I also knew it would be hard to get to the top of the hills as my bike has quite high gears, and it was so. So there would be plenty of hopping on and off for me!
I had let my tyres down to about 80psi, after my practice lap an older guy squeezed the tyres and muttered “You’ll want to go lower than that!” So I let down a bit more, maybe to 50.
Men’s B grade went first, then the women were lining up. 6 women, 5 sets of knobbly tyres. Gulp. I think I was fourth to the first corner, then up the hill, over a barrier. Switchbacks down the hill. A longer straight then to the trees at the front of the park. Lots of sand, then more switchbacks, then up the hill. A very long, fast descent straight into a sand bath. (Luckily on my practice run I had been right behind someone who knew what they were doing, I followed his line then and repeated that for each lap, and got through ok). Up the next hill, push to the top (!), then into the bush section. It was very sandy here so I had to push and ride. Finally back to grass. Two barriers in a row, uphill switchbacks, which I had not succeeded in the practice run but made it through during the race (!) then past the commentary box…
Repeat 4 times!
It was fast, furious action. I later read on Wikipedia that each section is only a few seconds long, and the idea is to constantly change speed, direction, surface, technique, uphill/downhill etc. That is an excellent description. It was like no other race I have ever done. It was constantly changing, I was constantly mounting and dismounting, going up, going down. It was a pretty challenging aerobic workout, and a challenging mental one too.
The good things were that I got much better at going through the sand as the laps went on. Each time I tried to find a different line until I found one that felt better. On my last lap I followed a competitor on a mountain bike around a sandy corner that had defeated me until then, and stayed riding the whole way.
My goals were to see what cyclocross is all about, and not injure myself. Tick, tick.
Probably a bit lucky to have dry weather, and I accidentally followed a couple of good lines by other people. The event had a nice atmosphere, about 40 male competitors, 6 women, and plenty of kids. It started on time and seemed well organised.
We stayed a short while to see the Men’s A grade, and it was an eye-opener. Where I had taken wide turns to get through the switchbacks, they were hugging the interior with flicks of their bikes. And the flying dismounts, barrier hops and re-mounts were impressive. Clearly lots of bike skills still to acquire!
Many thanks for Fabian for getting the kids in the car, and Christy, Jason and Danika for coming, and the fabulous cheer squad of Henry, Rosie and Georgie.
