As a total newbie to the sport of cyclocross (or should that be cyclo-cross or just 'cross'?) and down in north London for the weekend, I thought it would be the perfect chance to understand why this is one of the fastest growing areas of cycling and why I can't go on a club ride without someone banging on about how it's the perfect way to spend the winter.
The British weather on 25 October is not usually guaranteed to be good but the Gods of cycling were certainly shining on the Rapha Super Cross event as there was warm sunshine, hardly any wind and no rain whatsoever. I can only imagine that had it been 8 degrees, heavy rain and a gale force wind I might not have been so enthusiastic about the event.
Rapha had, as you would expect, put together a really well organised event. We arrived to find a car park full of lycra clad riders waiting to sign up for the various events, two food trucks (one serving burgers and frites and the other crepes), the famous Rapha H-van serving proper coffee and a Rapha beer tent, serving Belgian beers. In addition, the beer tent also had free Rapha cowbells for those watching to cheer on the riders (I expect to see these limited edition items on sale on eBay, although I am keeping them for my collection!).
We eventually settled on the 'jumps' area, a couple of wooden planks where riders could choose to either dismount and carry their bikes over or bunny hop over.
We watched three races in total and were slightly disappointed at how few people attempted the bunny hops. To be fair, it was a pretty high obstacle to get wrong and when we saw someone successfully get over the first one but then bunny hop straight into a photographer beside the track.
Anyone watching cyclocross for the first time probably doesn't get a proper idea of how exhausting it is. Only when we saw the riders recovering at the end of each race did we really see how totally shattered they were. And this was in good conditions.
The last race of the day was the 'fun' race in which riders had to ride through a huge amount of foam that was being shot out of what was billed as 'Europe's largest foam cannon'. It really paid to keep a controlled racing line through the foam as if you hit the steep part of the slope it was almost impossible to stay upright, as several riders demonstrated in front of a large crowd.
Riders also had the choice of taking a short cut where while they didn't have to ride so far they did have to down a tequila shot and get squirted with water along the way. Most riders chose the short cut and I think one or two of them may have just been there for the tequila.
Three hours of watching cyclocross really whetted my appetite to do it myself. My 9 year old daughter turned up half way through the afternoon and immediately announced she wants to ride in the race next year and persuaded me that I should do too. My six year old announced that he now wants to learn to ride a bike (which he previously had no interest in) so I think it pretty much did the job! Now I just have to get my wife to agree to race and the whole family will have been hooked. Now, time to buy some Rapha cyclocross kit....
Rapha Super Series Cyclocross at Alexandra Palace results.
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