Much to the confusion of my racing teammates, I do not consider myself a competitive person. In road racing, I get immense satisfaction working for others towards a common team goal. Burying myself to help a teammate gives me a high that I have a hard time finding elsewhere. Cross, on the other hand, is for me. I have little interest in winning the race or beating other people (something I'm told I have to work on!) but rather take every lap around a course as a challenge to do better than the last time, take the better line, lay off the brakes more, ride the feature I was scared of and had previously run. These are private wins for myself.

I started racing cross last year and had a ton of fun. I didn't know what I was doing and generally don't feel comfortable with the lack of grip you so often encounter in cross. I learned the basics of dismounting and remounting at Wednesday night cross practice (thanks Keith!) and was at least able to complete the laps even if it meant I was often running features.

Which brings me to the Cycle-Smart CX camp in Northampton, MA. I signed up with the goal to learn how to better ride my bike and develop the confidence to attempt features that previously scared me. I found it more than delivered and I'm excited to put what I learned into practice in the coming cross season!

All photos by Janice Checchio

The camp was broken down into two parts. The first two days had a larger field and were focused on sessioning specific skills at built out stations. The second two days were shorter, with fewer folks, and focused on putting the skills to practice on some loops in nearby woods.

There were a number of things that made this a successful weekend for me. Leading with possibly the most impactful, the coach to student ratio was always high. Different coaching styles work for different folks, and with the many coaches available, I could ask the same question to multiple coaches and get different perspectives trying out which advice best worked for me. "You can do it" type pep talk doesn't work well for me and I much prefer instruction on how to do it and focused demonstrations. On the second day of camp, focusing more on cornering, turning, and bunny hopping, I was able to commandeer a free coach (thanks so much Mark and Jordan!) and say "I'm following you, yell to me every time you're braking and when you let up." This gave me a much better sense of the speed I could carry into a corner and the confidence that my tires would hold.

On our last day doing laps in a technical section, I opted to session some features on the course that I found challenging but felt confident I could master. One of the coaches (thanks Dan!) stayed with me and gave me pointers every time I repeatedly failed the feature. “Pedal harder,” “look there,” “level pedals here,” “weight there.” He thankfully spared any of the "just send it" and instead had actual instruction and willingness to demonstrate multiple times. I got both sand features I wanted to tackle by the end reliably and repeatably. I won't say I'm over my fear of them but I got a much better sense of what turning in the sand and riding in the rut feels like. In personal goals, that was a huge win. I'm incredibly happy with my decision to stay the extra days. The extra time spent trying out what I had just learned was immensely valuable.

With the large number of coaches available, the groups were split small enough and along ability levels such that I never felt like I might be holding anyone else back from getting the most out of their time as well.

I also learned a lot from my fellow campers! We were all learning at the same time and when we got something, shared what made it click to the group. There was a wide variety or experiences from mountain bikers trying something different to roadies touching dirt for the first time. Sometimes campers were better at a specific skill than the coaches and could provide excellent tutelage. They were also a fun group of people to hang out with for four days. Good vibes all around.

"Worth it" is a hard term as everyone values their dollar differently. It's not a cheap weekend and it's a far trek from NYC, but there's no question I got a huge amount of value from this weekend and barring the unforeseen, have every intention of coming back next year. Maybe this time in the intermediate group!