Hit the North - from behind the barriers

Cross Club had a run-out today at the infamous Hit the North 2012, in Philips Park, Whitefield, Manchester. Icy conditions and heavy snow made conditions extremely tough for the ~250 riders who took to the course, although it made for fun viewing for the handful of spectators who braved the cold.

I didn't manage to catch up with everyone at the end, but good rides seem to have been had by all.

Boxing Day Cross

Merry Christmas Everyone!

A quick report on the CXNE Round 11 at Temple Park, South Shields. The same venue as my first race of the year and just as fast and enjoyable. Some interesting off-camber bits (which began to defeat me towards the end), fantastic high barriers and fast sections. Not to mention a beast of a headwind!

Off camber concentration.

A good field of about 65 riders was an awesome turn out, especially as the proceeds were going to CRY Charity (Cardiac Risk in the Young). This is a great charity and it was brilliant to see some support for it, especially a condition that can hit the fittest of younger people. Brilliant organisation by Jamie Brady, and credit to him. We had some big local 'hitters' in attendance, (such as the NE Chuckle Brothers) and National Champ Paul Oldham filling his boots on the way to a double winning weekend. All in all, a strong field.

I started alright, but fairly early was in trouble. The race had been put back to 13:30 and I hadn't eaten too well; I soon hit a wall and cursed my lack of prep (despite the 7000 calories I had ingested the day previously), but didn't seem to have any energy. Good nutrition is normally something I manage with, but you live and learn. That is my best excuse for my performance!

I (heart) barriers.

I finished a palatable 25th. Tired and hungry. Actually not too bad, as I've hovered around that positioning this year. My 6th position at Dalton Park TLI will remain my best finish of the year, but a 16th at Barnard Castle, CXNE was my favourite - truly a horrible day, but so much fun!

The end of the Cross season is nigh for me, as I am really looking forward to getting stuck into my endurance training proper again. Long rides, long races and goals for next year are being formulated in my head, but cyclocross is certainly a bug I've acquired this season. Coming to the end of my first ever season of all forms of bike racing, it has been a moderately successful one, with highs and lows, but all-in-all very enjoyable. Progress is slow but promising.

The dream would be to have Todd Wells ability; a penchant for cyclocross and 100 mile MTB races. Quite how you acquire that is the challenge! Offroad is the best road however.

Anyhow, all the best to you for 2012. Keep riding and happy racing :) Many thanks to Mark Mather for the pics, I appreciate your efforts.

Van Dessel: Gin and Trombones

This is a post I've been threatening to write for a while, it is a review on my Van Dessel Gin and Trombones.

I've been riding and racing the bike for a few months so I now feel qualified enough to write a bit about it!

The frameset came from the Bearded Man, David was fantastic to deal with and the framesets arrived exactly when he said they would at a brilliant price.

The frameset is beautiful and paintwork has a very definite Flandrian look!! It arrives with a few extras that show Van Dessel know about what is required by a cross bike, the pot of touch up paint is an especially nice touch as is the frame protection tape on the top tube.

With a carbon rear end and carbon forks it feels very very light. The forks are full carbon tapered forks with an appropriate headset supplied with the frame.  I don't have a crown race installation tool but a rubber mallet proved once again it is the tool for every job!  Expect maybe in the case of the BB 30 bottom bracket which I took the the LBS to get fitted.

My build had to be a bit on the budget side but with TRP brakes, 105 shifters, rear mech, ultegra front mech, FSA gossamer BB 30 chainset and tiagra 10 speed cassette it ended up being much better than expected, this is mainly due to team mate Paul and his endless supply of used parts!

Black bar tape, cables, bars, stem, seatpost and saddle finish the build.  Admittedly, I let the Van Dessel down as these should be more gucci, but yellow bar tape and cables are on there way!

I suppose what everyone is really interested in is how it 'goes'.  It goes really well. Really really well!  Partly this is down to the weight, I haven't weighed the bike but it feels light and is probably sub 8.5kg even in this build. Not only is it physically light when you lift it but more importantly when you ride it.  The frame is incredibly responsive and really does inspire confidence.  I've been happy to ride this bike through the technical bits of the local woods and round the powerline trail at Chopwell Woods.  Obviously anywhere outside a race course the brakes feel pretty under powered compared to disc brakes, again this is something Van Dessel have thought of and the frame already has frame mounts and cable routing for disc brakes.

The frame also has fantastic mud clearance and seems to far better than most of the other framesets at the races, with only one cross bike this sort of feature really is important.

All in all, I love this bike, I'm lucky enough to have a few pretty good bikes but since this arrived I haven't ridden anything else.  In my opinion, that is about as higher praise as I can give the G&T.  I think the only upgrade I need to make is to get a second one for race days or maybe a carbon Full Tilt Boogie!

NECCL Round 6 - Dalton Park

The last race before Christmas. A lot closer to home than my last spin out at Barnard Castle - and still easily a 30 minute drive. Plenty of people drive further than that to race though, and I'm glad I did yesterday...

As the only Cross Club rider around this weekend, I was flying the flag. A scout of the circuit showed it was lumpy and draggy with little opportunity to gain momentum - a good cyclocross course you might say - but I like my dismounts and hills! Plenty of off-camber fun to keep me entertained though. With another poor start due to unfortunate positioning further down the grid, I had to fight my way forward and took some risks, running wide once or twice. I managed to clear a large portion of the field but it was a bit late to catch any leaders.

I worked hard to reel in a few riders - saw punctures, crashes and mechanicals knock out others - while keeping my effort up; certainly I need to improve on some aspects of my race, but I know my endurance is good, so I kept up the pace...

Rapha ran a program called 'Cross Clash' featuring Tim Johnson and Jeremy Powers racing each other. One of the things it featured was about 'battles within a race' - if I beat you, I win. There are always riders you have a good battle with, and today it was Ian Jefferson from Infinity Cycles. He got a great start, and once I got into my rhythm I had him in my sights for the majority of the 50'. I worked very hard to close the gap, and managed to pass him at the start of the last lap, in the end winning a sprint against another rider whom I'd battled with throughout as well. Great fun.

I love this about cyclocross; we may not be at the level of the leaders (yet!) but those skirmishes, that changing of position, pushing yourself, your bike handling and the feeling of the chase... well, it really keeps you on your toes, and makes you a better and fitter racer.

From what I garner, I claimed a top-1o finish. Despite a few strong riders missing, including my team mates, it was my best finish of the season - and that was with a poor start! So I'll take it. I worked hard. I enjoyed it. What else matters?

To use another Rapha catchphrase - 'Keep Cross and Clash On'.

Merry Christmas.

TLI Cyclocross National Championships Gateshead and CXNE Round 9 - Barnard Castle

We've been a bit slow at race reports lately so this is a 2 for 1 deal!

First off Cross Club headed to Gateshead for the TLI National Championships.  Paul, Neal and I headed to a very windy Gateshead, the Met Office had an Amber warning out due to the wind speeds but a decent crowd of about 60 riders still turned up.

Usually I like to write about how much I enjoyed the course, this time, nothing could be further from the truth! It wasn't really the course more the fact that the wind killed me!  There were a couple of climbs into the wind with one particularly horrible climb only to be hit by the wind as you crested.

My awesome Van Dessel ready to role



It was a tough race and it felt like I spent the rest of the lap recovering from the hill.  Neal had a great race and Paul was going well until he punctured and had to run most of a lap.  Luckily one of the Blackhawk riders lent Paul a bike so he could complete the race.

I'm not sure about the results but I think Neal was inside the top 15, Paul was about 18th and I managed a personal best at around 22nd.

So for a tough race it ended up going pretty nicely!

Next up was Barnard Castle last weekend.

This was my first real taste of Cyclocross weather!  Up until now all my races have been dry and I've only needed to wear bib shorts and a jersey.  Barnard Castle brought freezing rain and sleet and along with it arm and leg warmers and a gillet!

After completing a practise lap, the warm up consisted of sitting in the car with the heater on full!

With Paul in Belgium enjoying waffles and beer and Rich racing at the next round of the duathlon series it was left to Rob, Neal and I to fly the Cross Club flag.

The course was great and at 1.7 miles it felt like the longest course this season.  The course had a couple of barriers, some tarmac and some sticky mud!  Just about perfect.

Neal riding it like it's on rails 

With the North East Championships on the Sunday the Saturday was providing an opportunity for some of the big guns to have a practise on the course.  With Paul Oldham showing us all how it is done.

Me following Nev Martin

I had a great race fighting hard with Nev Martin from Infinity Cycles and Dave Charman from Blackhawk bikes.  The three of us battled for most of the race with Nev pulling out a lead in the last section of mud and me getting in front of Dave on the tarmac to the finish.  Next time I think I will let Nev follow me across the line!

Rob and Neal both had great races, with Rob managing to meet the cut off for an extra lap.  This gave me and Neal the chance to recover and then laugh at the pain on Rob's face when he crossed the line.

As a treat I had invited my parents to come and watch this race, the weather made wasn't perfect but it was good for them to see what it is all about.  It didn't take long for my Dad to get the hang of Cyclocross, at the end of the race he even had a few tips.  Basically I need to go faster at the start and then just stay in front of everyone! I suggest you all watch out at the next race as I now know what I've been doing wrong.

The race was also the first outing for the Crossclub kit.  Thanks to the sponsors Apex Acoustics Ltd and Bearded Man. 

Whinlatter Duathlon

In an attempt to keep this winter varied, I'd been looking for alternative races to have a go at, aside from cross. Whinlatter Offroad Duathlon caught my eye as being pretty soon, as well as being at Whinlatter - somewhere I know the riding to be good and pretty tough.

I managed to rope in Shonah to complete the two running sections, which sandwich the bike racing, and we entered as a mixed pair.

Sho was off first, completing a 7km run, which she later told me was so steep in places it required 4 points of contact! She came into the transition area in top end of mid pack, holding pace with some wiry looking blokes and with distance between her and some of the other women - I was chuffed to bits and set out at full tilt on the 20km bike route, fuelled by Clif Shot Bloks and 2 of the Gels kindly provided by the guys at 2Pure. If you haven't yet tried these products, make it a must do for your next event!

I was soon into maximum effort and seemed to be overtaking plenty of people, eventually catching the guy who was riding as part of a mixed pair who had won the previous events. Making sure to pass him at full speed at the same time as trying to make it look effortless (a technique taught and perfected by Neal of cross club), I set to building as big a gap as possible to ensure Sho could have a bit more of a comfortable time of it come the final run.

I came into the transition absolutely on the limit, but was pleased to only see perhaps 7 or 8 bikes back and handed over to Sho who duly nailed the run and brought home Cross Club's first podium - first place in the mixed pairs!

Unfortunately the Cross Club kit hadn't arrived for the race and so the "podium" picture is unfortunately a bit non descript!

All in all, a cracking day. The riding was excellent and, as predicted, relentlessly tough.

Even more pleasing was the fact I managed 3rd fastest overall bike split. Chris Hope (lakeland mtb folk hero) and the overall winner beat me by about 30 seconds. Full credit to these guys - they'd ran the 7km and still managed to smash the ride!!

Next round of the series is next sunday, where we have to go and try and maintain our position in the series. The whole event is a bit longer - I'm hoping this suits me better, as short events are not really my forte!

Cross Club Kit touches down

After many iterations, logo placement sessions for supporters and sponsors, we have finally taken delivery of the new Cross Club kit. Early impressions are good and the design looks really really good. All acknowledgement for the great design lies at the door or Dunc (of here come the belgians fame) - he's pulled a blinder!

Below are a few words from Rob who seems to be the only guy to have actually modelled his kit so far! He asked me not to use this photograph, but until better ones arrive, I think it's fine!

"Finally, our own team Cross Club kit has arrived! Great quality from Champion Systems, I am personally very pleased with the fit as well – the ability to try ‘size samples’ prior to confirming the order was of great help to check, and if necessary, change our choices. A great thank you goes to Apex Acoustics and our other sponsors for the support –we’ll see the company name at some more cross races as well national Mountain Bike races and more off road duathlons come the 2012 season, and hopefully on podiums! It’s nice to know that our riding and racing preferences, and that we literally cross all of cycling’s best distinctions, are reflected in a smart kit that we can use all year round."

If you like the kit, please let us know, as there are plans to get further runs completed...