After soccer this past weekend, the little one and I stumbled across the Canadian Cyclecross championships playing out right in our home town.  Having not been to a cycling race or event of any type before it was pretty exciting to see.  We saw some mixed up tires (if you squint in the picture here you can see a crash that just occured, sorry for the iphone pictures it’s all I had with me):

Man these guys and girls work really hard.  You could see just how challenging it is to ride these bikes through the 2.7KM course they had laid out.  We stuck around for the mens finals and watched as these folks duked it out for the race.

Tonnes of mud and dirt everywhere, lots of cowbells ringing and an announcer keeping everyone looped in on what was going on throughout the course.

I ended up digging around a bit after the race and found the tactical guide (PDF) to the race on the Cyclecross Canada website.  It’s interesting to see just how much race data and organization goes into even what some might see as a smaller event out here.

We’ll still stick with the road racing for now, but this looks like a tonne of fun.  Congrats to all the racers!

edit:  I was just digging around for more Cyclecross shots of this race and stumbled across this Portland race.  Holy muddy riders!  Go check out these great shots!

http://bikeportland.org/2012/11/19/crusade-finale-course-a-soul-crusher-but-smiles-prevail-80353

Tweet