A First Race
Me and Magnus, post race.
November, 2019
One Saturday morning in late October, my phone dinged, alerting me to a new email. It was from a “BikeReg.com,” and the subject line read “Registration Confirmation.” Huh?
Opening the email, it appeared that I was now registered for a cyclocross bike race the following weekend in a nearby town. This couldn’t be right. I certainly hadn’t signed myself up for any races. A few minutes later, it all became clear as my phone dinged again - this time, a text message from my friend Magnus:
“Hey so the bike for next weekend is in my parents’ garage. It’s bright blue and will be hard to miss. Feel free to take it out for a shred this weekend and you can hang on to it for the week. You might need to adjust the seat height and the shifting should work well-ish enough.”
What the what? A second ding...
”Oh, and have fun!”
After a couple months of unsuccessful attempts to convince me to sign up for one of these cyclocross bike races, Magnus had taken the liberty of doing it for me. Ah, Magnus. He always has my best interests in mind.
Magnus liked to describe these cyclocross races as incorporating ‘all the best aspects of cycling.’ A cyclocross race consists of multiple laps around a short course that aims to make use of as many types of terrain as possible; pavement, grass, mud, roots & rocks, sand, steep hills, and a few obstacles that make it necessary for a rider to dismount and carry their bike for at least a few steps before hopping back on. Riders are typically on gravel or cyclocross specific bikes that have wider, knobbier tires to maximize traction, hence Magnus’ offer for me to use his gravel bike - my road bike simply wouldn’t survive.
While I had no idea how to ride a race like this, I was curious about the prospect of bringing some competition back into my life...I’d grown up a year-round team sports kid, and now my competitive outlets consisted of weekly indoor soccer games with work friends in the winter months, the occasional pickup basketball game at the Williams College gym, and ‘racing’ others in town on Strava’s cycling segments.
After confirming with Magnus that he would be joining me in this race (his ‘have fun!’ text had me wondering if he’d signed me up for this without signing himself up as well), I zipped over to grab his bright blue gravel bike. The next day I squeezed in a quick ride before a work trip would take me out of town until the evening before the race.
The night before our race, Magnus and another friend of ours popped over for a few minutes to chat race strategy and carpool logistics. A few work friends would make the drive out to support us, as would my parents, who were in town for a visit that weekend (photo credit for all race photos here goes to my mom!). The forecast for race day? Wind, rain, & 45 degrees. Excellent.
Magnus and I arrived to the race location early so that we’d have time to take a couple warm up laps on the course. I had to chuckle a few times on that first go-around...there’s only so much describing of a cyclocross course one can understand before witnessing one in person. The entire town park area had been taped off into a single twisting & turning loop. As Magnus promised it would, the narrow zig zagging route seemed to make an effort to run right through challenging terrain like steep, muddy hills, roots, and even a small stream crossing. Then I came to a barrier - imagine one of those little wooden walls that equestrian horses jump over - it was exactly that, but just high enough to force a rider to need to carry their bike over it. This really was going to be an adventure.
Chasing Magnus up a climb.
Sufficiently warmed up (as much as one can be when it’s 45 and raining), we lined up to start. The buzzer sounded, and the ‘hammerfest’ began (‘hammerfest’ being Magnus’ way of describing the start of a cyclocross race...after experiencing one, I think it’s spot on. Just a mass of people pedaling as hard as they can!). For the next 40 minutes or so, I alternated between pedaling as hard as I could for 10-20 second bursts and then slamming on the brakes to take a slippery corner, hop off the bike to hop over something, or climb an unrideable hill. I found myself loving the moments where I could settle into a pedaling rhythm, and felt that I could hold my own there, but I did not have the technical skills needed to hang with the pack. Turns out folks are pretty darn good at hopping on and off their bike remarkably fast.
Magnus and I finished up somewhere in the middle of the pack, but certainly had the most fans in attendance. That had to count for something, especially given the weather. A fantastic morning of testing the competitive waters (literally?) of racing bikes. While I don’t think that I have a future in cyclocross, I do think that this experience has again pushed my understanding of a bicycle’s capability. These gravel bikes that I’ve become more and more interested in seem to be able to handle almost any terrain that one can throw at them, yet still be able to maintain good speeds on pavement. Do I see a gravel bike purchase in my near future? Magnus has been pushing me to invest in a gravel bike for a while now as well. He’s a strong two for two on expanding my comfort level on a bike thus far. Could he soon be three for three?
