'I’ve hated and enjoyed every single minute of the stupidity of it': VecchioJo's love letter to cyclo-cross, cycling's silliest discipline... cycling
I still remember these wise words when I asked around for snippets of advice just before my first ever cyclo-cross race, even though it was half a lifetime ago. I was popping my ‘cross cherry at the request of a magazine editor who suggested that as I happily embraced both road and mountain bike riding, should have a go at this worst possible combination of the two, and what was at the time a very clandestine corner of cycle sport.
Even preceding all of this, there was the drop-barred mountain bike that was supposed to be a fun rufty-tufty working-in-a-bike-shop parts-bin-special road bike something-or-other, before unfortunate circumstances had it pressed into proper mountain bike duties for a summer season. Even peering through scratched, dusty and smeared rose tinted lenses it was the best fun bike I’ve ever had.I’m not sure what it is, but something about a cycle-cross bike just dovetails with my psyche perfectly.
While I love riding a cyclo-cross bikes, I have only been keenly enthusiastic rather than obsessed about racing them most of my time has been spent just dicking about inappropriately on the hills out the back. My racing has been sporadic with enough weather-related and illness excuses, and I also have a strong travel-to-race-time-ratio conscience which puts a lots of events out of reach.
Alongside all of this it’s the cycle sport I’ve always considered to be the most welcoming and inclusive. Crabbing along a muddy playing field embankment is a great leveller, and no-one knows who you are behind a layer of mud.
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