It’s officially mid-September and the cyclocross cobwebs are officially dusted off. While most everyone I know elected to keep it simple and stick to a single-race weekend at Whirlybird, I took it upon myself to drive unholy distances over two days in order to race both DCCX on Saturday and Whirlybird, outside of Philly, on Sunday.

I could not be more pleased with my decision.

DCCX Recap

DCCX is historically one of my favorite races: the course is great, it draws a great crowd, it has a fun party atmosphere, and DC is a fun place to hang out for a night or two. With the race down to just one day in 2021, however, most people in the NYC area deemed it too far of a drive to be worth it, and I was on my own. This forced me to lean on the Philly CX community for support (truly a great place for bike race friends, and a shoutout to Clem Nixon in particular for keeping me housed), but ultimately it was worth the hassle.

It was a bigger party than ever this year, with an addition of a four-person relay race at the end of the day that put a sort of exclamation point on an already great day.

I love the DC course because it flows exceptionally well, and almost every corner is taped super wide, so any speed limits are set by your own approach and whatever the terrain is, rather than the tape. There are only two or three corners that you need brakes at all, as long as you set yourself up correctly. Me, a person who loves to go fast while pedaling as little as possible, very much appreciates this approach to course design.

Somewhere around three minutes to the start of the women’s elite race, what would be the theme of my race came into focus for me: teenagers. It turns out, the CX Hairs Devo team and general DC-area support for junior women’s cyclocross has exploded and half or more of the women’s elite field were juniors. I knew of and had raced with some of them before, but others were entirely new faces that I could tell were there to crush my soul. Honestly, inspiring!

Sure enough, the whistle blew and the field sprinted. It’s always a sprint at the start of a cross race, but what I mean is I’ve never been in a non-UCI field and actually sprinted my hardest and found myself still at the back?? After the first two turns we were hurtling downhill toward the famous “W” and I just took a moment to look all these girls who presumably knew each other and had been practicing against each other for two years, and were finally unleashed on the world this weekend. It was cool, and I was immediately dying (but I also suspected some of them might blow up—foreshadowing).

God bless the gap they got on me going into the W, actually, because when you can ride a feature that many people in front of you are going to mess up it’s always nice to have a little gap to let them get off their bikes while you ride by them.

The rest of the race is a bit of a whirlwind. I saw HR numbers I haven’t seen in years. I ended up doing better than I had any right to with all the rippers around me simply because I am old now (“experienced”) and I managed to race consistently with, again, my favorite minimalist approach to pedaling. I do not have any illusions that next time I will not be crushed. (Also I think someone asked me to dinner while I was uphill remounting post-barriers? I couldn’t breathe and definitely couldn’t see but I respected the effort. Get in touch.)

My second favorite moment of the race, after having my ass handed to me at the start by people who were actually not born on 9/11, was the clusters of people hanging around at the finish line, approaching wheezing women and asking them if they wanted to race the relay, because you know every team needed a woman. I DID in fact want to race the relay, but hadn’t been able to put together a team with my last minute registration. Don’t tell my coach my “cool down” was a race.

I am pleased to report that both myself, in the elite race, and the relay team I joined, finished solidly mid-pack. Those kind of results are the respectable mediocrity that I strive for in bike racing.

Whirlybird Recap

Gallery above by Cullen

Whirlybird could not have been more different. It was a much smaller race, but it seemed like I knew everyone there. My pain was caused entirely by adults. More than my own experience, though, it was great to be able to watch friends and teammates race.

It was hot again. The course was different from previous iterations, taking out the far wood section and adding a large forced run up (for most but not all) hill. It was still more sustained pedaling than I personally like on an 85 degree day, but I have to admit I had fun.

A steep run up on one side inevitably means a fun, steep, sendy descent on the other. The flat terrain meant that the hill was an observable feature from basically anywhere a person would want to spectate the course, so it was fun to watch people struggle up it and fly down it all day long.

That is what cyclocross is, right? A day of bonding with friends and strangers over a shared struggle of a course. These photos, I think, speak to why we keep coming back for more.

photos below by daghan