TWTW: Cyclocross Season in Full Swing
In comparison to last weekend when a huge portion of the squad gathered in Pennsylvania for Nittany Lion Cross, this most recent week that was saw the team split between a few smaller cyclocross races while a big crew stayed in New York City to train on and off the road. All-in-all it made for a pretty low key week of bikes as we prepare for the next big CX race on the team calendar: Charm City.
The Week That Was (TWTW) On the Bike
On the racing front Ted, Cullen, Seb, and Clark opened the weekend at Town Hall Cross in Pennsylvania on Saturday. With a shortened course compared to prior years this one involved a lot of climbing. So. Much. Climbing. Ted led the opening laps of the race but went full send twice, the second time leading to a mechanical that took him out of contention. Thus Clark led the team home somewhere in the Top 15 context. (Town Hall Cyclocross Results will be here).
The following day it was Cullen flying the TBD colors solo at Bridgeton Cross in New Jersey. If you followed our Instagram Stories on Sunday you got a sense for just how wet and sandy the course was. Unfortunately Cullen’s brake pads didn’t agree with those conditions and by mid-way through the race he lost all braking and went full send through the course tape not once but twice before DNF’ing for self-preservation purposes. Outside of our IG stories we didn’t grab many photos from the race but as is often the case Dan Chabanov captured some great images at Bridgeton. (Bridgeton Cross Results will be here)
Outside of the races it was a pretty unpleasant week of weather for training thanks to a fair amount of rain that insured we stayed on the pavement early in the week (reminder: do not give your fellow cyclists a bad name — always stay off the trails/grass when its wet out). Thankfully later in the week conditions dried out enough for an escape to some of our favorite trails with one of our brand new Garneau Dream Factory Steeple CX bikes. It’s definitely hard to beat a weekday in the woods with near-perfect weather.
Otherwise it definitely felt like cyclocross season with lots of interval efforts from team coach Jacob Fetty (for more on our team training program check out The Daily Grind). This included a particularly memorable early morning workout featuring 4x10 sprint efforts (15 seconds on / 15 seconds off) that left the team feeling appropriately wiped. And once the weekend rolled around it was more of the same as Jacob lined up a whole series of possibly soul crushing workouts for the portion of the squad that wasn’t racing.
Of course it wasn’t an entirely cyclocross focused week for the team. The skinny tire crew was still in action all weekend long, sneaking in some pleasant miles on our usual stomping grounds, with an entirely appropriate amount of off-season fueling.
Scenes from the weekend. pic.twitter.com/OGwIpLbM3Z
— ToBeDetermined.cc 😉 (@TBDcycling) September 23, 2018
Last but certainly not least, the team’s official photographer spent the weekend out in Waterloo shooting the World Cup race while the team played ‘Where’s Daghan’ on the livefeed. Hopefully we’ll be able to share some of his images on the journal in the coming weeks.
The Week That Was On the TBD Journal
Cheese Curds and Belgian Fries: Trek CX Cup (Sep 21, 2018) - just before Daghan headed west for one of the biggest weekends of US racing of the entire year he checked into the Journal with a throwback to last year’s Trek CX Cup World Cup event. Head over to the post for a massive photo gallery.
Riding the Dutch Polder (Sep 20, 2018) - Liz Marcello from CityMD recounts her experience riding in a country with actual biking infrastructure, unlike our experience on two wheels here in the States.
The Essential Cyclocross Packing List (Sep 19, 2018) - with cyclocross season fully underway Clay offers up his essential (and non-essential) packing list for any cyclocross weekend.
Nothing and Everything: Nittany Lion Cross 2018 (Sep 17, 2018) - the first doubleheader weekend of the year has come and gone but not without a huge photo gallery and race report.
Reading, Links and Random Facts
Veranda's Willems-Crelan file lawsuit against Wout van Aert (CyclingNews) - we’re not sure exactly what happened behind the scenes but with speculation that the team manager attempted to force riders to sign a letter against the World Champ it certainly sounds like WvA’s shift to privateer involved plenty of drama.
Two Riders Were Disqualified for Taking Selfies—Did the Race Go Too Far? (Bicycling Magazine) - over the years there have been a few instances of local controversy over DQ’s due to finish line celebrations, but how about getting DQ’d after 206 miles of racing for taking a photo?
Trump approves tariffs on Chinese goods including $1 billion in bike products, effective next Monday (Bicycle Retailer) - for an industry already facing a fair amount of stagnation $1B of tariffs probably aren’t going to help matters but here we are.
Parting Shot
We’re not exactly sure what is going on here, but it happened this past week at Reno Cross:
Bikes. Blades. Beers. pic.twitter.com/hGgbzKVV5Z
— FloBikes (@flobikes) September 20, 2018
A New York City based cyclist and sometimes photographer. Part adventure rider, part crit racer, and fully obsessed with an English bulldog named Winifred.
Instagram: @photorhetoric
E-mail: matthew@tobedetermined.cc
