[background music] Jeremy: What is cyclocross and why
should you watch it? First of all, cyclocross takes place off-road on a closed course,
similar to an outdoor velodrome with lots of obstacles, like mud, sand, off-cambers, and
all of that is ridden on tiny mountain bike tires on drop bar road bikes. Why should you watch it?
If that's not enough reason, it's like going to a football match or a baseball game, but you get to
be right on the sidelines, drinking beer, eating fries, bringing cowbells, and yelling as loud as
you can for your favorite riders. It's also where the best bike handlers are born. There isn't
anything in cycling that rivals the experience of spectating or racing a proper cyclocross race.
Cyclocross is where road riders go to go off-road. In all seriousness though, it really is. It's
where mountain bikers, road riders, and pretty much everyone in between from all disciplines
come together to go head to head in a one-hour slugfest. You could compare road racing to
the game of chess, and then you could compare cyclocross to the game of checkers. In chess,
there are multiple pawns that move around just like a big road team to set up their leader.
Whereas in cyclocross, it's one person versus another boom, boom, boom. It happens super quick.
I've often said it takes a road race five hours to figure out what cyclocross gets done in one hour.
Let's start out with what is cyclocross? Well, first of all, cyclocross courses are
mostly off-road, usually held in some type of park or outdoor venue or an arena even.
Cross courses are going to have tons of obstacles all throughout them. Some natural, some
fabricated. Those are going to force riders to be technically on-point and agile, and oftentimes
riders will have to dismount their bikes and start running with them especially if a section
gets too hard or too technical, or for instance, a rider can't keep their momentum through heavy
sand or mud that's out on the course. Now, cyclocross, or CX as it's called,
will have multiple laps that are around eight-minutes long and the races are typically
40 to 50-minutes long for the women's elite and around 60-minutes long for the men's elite.
What bike do you use for cyclocross? Well, you'll use a cyclocross bike, which looks
just like a road bike, but it'd be more similar to a gravel bike. It'll have a higher bottom bracket,
it'll have increased tire clearance for bigger tires, it'll have more aggressive
geometry to be able to take those sharp turns that you see out on the cyclocross course at
slower speeds with ease and keeping traction. Cross bikes these days are almost always outfitted
with disc brakes, gravel groupsets, sometimes single chainrings, and clutch rear derailleurs
to keep the chain from popping off when they go over the undulating terrain that cross riders
often see. They also will opt for tubular tires as it's the only form of suspension on
a cyclocross bike. Now, traditionally, even though they go off-road, they don't use any
suspension. While tubeless technology is growing, you haven't seen a pro rider yet on a high-level
race on them. Not yet, but that might be coming. You might be thinking, well, why wouldn't you just
use a mountain bike? A cross bike is faster for the types of conditions that cyclocross races are
held on. Typically for a mountain bike, you need bigger tires, more aggressive routes and rocks,
and things like that. Cyclocross courses are generally manicured for a 700C NAVI 33C tubular,
which is why it's so much fun to watch and to participate. It's almost like having the wrong,
but also the right bike for the job. Where is cyclocross racing popular?
Cyclocross racing happens all over the globe. It does have a Cyclo-cross World Cup,
which goes to several countries, but it's mainly in the United States, Ireland, the UK,
and Europe. Hotspots include Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North America, the UK, all over Europe,
but Belgium and the Netherlands are the big dogs of cyclocross for the moment. The racing scene
in these countries is massive and completely unrivaled. Speaking of rival, the rivalries
between the best men and best women from the Belgium and the Netherlands, second to none.
Let's talk about some of the conditions that you see on a cyclocross course.
Mud is actually favored by the riders and fans, but courses can have sand and grass, pavement for
the start finish sections, and usually, there's a big wide open field somewhere in a cyclocross
course. Races often come down to last lap duels with one rider capitalizing from another rider's
mistakes with the crowd cheering, hanging over the tape, screaming at the top of their lungs,
letting the rider that's out front know when a mistake has been made behind. Just the sound of
the crowd it is intense. The racing often ends in a sprint finish with second place being just
a couple of seconds off of the winner if at all. For fans of the sport, you can see the differences
in technique, the style, and the panache of the riders in full view from one vantage point out on
the course. The best riders in the world make it look easy, but if you've ever been to a cyclocross
race, then you know it's anything but. Peanut butter mud underneath your tires, slipping and
sliding, terrible nasty off-cambers sectors that push riders to their absolute limit lap after lap.
Cross courses are constantly changing all throughout the race and riders are pushed
to their absolute maximum in skills, technical ability, physical agility, running, and mental
fortitude. Sometimes racing cyclocross doesn't really look pretty it's just how you get the
job done. Now, unlike road racing fans, riders in cyclocross interact with their fans very closely.
Cyclocross resembles more of the upper slopes of the Tour de France stage with the fans screaming,
running alongside the riders as they get to the finish line.
Cyclocross is almost always held in the fall and winter in the cold months because racing
cyclocross in the summertime is just not that much fun. From someone that's done it,
there's just not enough airflow. It's hot. The courses are slow.
It's just not exactly designed for that. It's really to be held in winter conditions with
getting off and on the bike all the time that helps keep your feet warm.
The slower speeds out in the course also allow riders to stay warm. Being in the forest and the
woods also cuts down on the airflow and the wind so you stay warmer. If you think about
road racing in the wintertime with the cold and rainy and sometimes even snowy weather,
you can see why cyclocross makes a lot more sense in the cold and nasty stuff.
Cyclocross racing can be easily compared to horse racing as it's started by the shot of a gun or
a whistle blown. If you can imagine a big horse race where everyone is greeted on the frontline,
waiting there at the start to just punch out of the gate as soon as they hear the whistler or
the gun go off. It is super-fast. The first laps of a cyclocross race, the first 15 or 20 minutes
are absolutely electrifying and crazy with tons of jockeying for position with the first rider
trying to get to the first turn or technical section. There's a lot that happens in that
first 60 seconds, but also in those first laps. Now, it's different than road racing as the men
and the women race cyclocross on the same day at the same course at the same venue,
one after the other. In fact, women's cyclocross races have had more spectators, TV audience, and
fans than some of the men's races in the past few seasons. That's due to such a deep talent pool,
exciting battles out on the cross course that we've seen over the past few seasons. Women's
cyclocross is continuing to gain popularity all over the world right now and it's great to see.
With that kind of introduction, you're probably asking yourself where can I watch all of this
great cyclocross racing? It sounds super cool. First of all, cyclocross has several big series
and GCN has rights to more live on-demand racing coverage than ever. Basically, you can watch
live and on-demand coverage of every women's and men's cross-race from the Superprestige,
DVV Trophy, and Ethias Cross series as well as the 2020 European Championships this season.
My good friend Marty McDonald and I are going to be calling the races and giving you the very best
insight and analysis all season long. All the races are ad-free, they're available globally,
except in the heartland in Belgium, through the race pass on the GCN app. Make sure that
you download and subscribe to get the race pass. Of course,
territory restrictions apply. Please do check to make sure that you're covered,
but all of those series that I said above are covered globally, excluding Belgium.
That is what cyclocross is and why you should watch it. I hope that we see many of you over
on the race pass and the app this fall and winter. We're huge fans of cyclocross here at GCN. Let us
know down in the comments, what your favorite race to watch is and what you're looking forward to
this season the most. Thank you all so much for watching. We'll see you next time. I think I'm
going to open this Westmalle as a matter of fact. It's late in the day, this is a triple, probably
won't need much, but let's see what happens. [00:08:56] [END OF AUDIO]