World Cup - Nommay

Being a total cross-geek I like nothing more than getting home from a race on a Sunday to watch the final lap of the day's World Cup on Youtube. So far this season, the big races have been fairly predictable, but today's race in Nommay, France, was genuinely exciting. Going into the final lap there are two men together, the World Champ Niels Albert and the crowd's favourite (well, my favourite) Zdenek Stybar. And is that Sven Nys just behind them? Yes, it is.
Click on the vid below to watch what is a genuinely exciting battle for the win.

PS, Ian Field will probably be disappointed to have finished back in 32nd having had a couple of top 20's in the Super Prestige recently, but finishing just over 3mins down in the company is not bad at all. Keep it coming Fieldy!

Pre-War cyclcocross

"Never will a daredevil succeed in being champion of cyclocross!" - Eugène Christophe

I just came across these images on blackbirdsf.org (via Mr CrossTube). The top composite shot is from Le Cross Cyclo-pédestre des Mureaux, November 1921, the second shot of the steep bomb hole (I'd look at that twice on an MTB, let alone a pre-war road bike!) is from the 8^e Critérium International de Cross Cyclo-pédestre, 07 February 1932, and finally, the last shot is from Prix Pasbecq, 11 Jan 1931.
The cyclocross archive on blackbirds.org is very cool, I urge you to go and have a look!

Rollapaluza Muddy Hell Haloween cyclocross

Andy Waterman Vs Bryan Taylor by thisview - see the rest of his Muddy Hell gallery.

What a great event! That was one of the best bike events I've ever been to. In fact, it was probably THE best bike event I've been to in the UK ever.
The event was held at Herne Hill velodrome and promoted by Rollapaluza who did a fantastic job providing a well lit course, cheap beer (although it ran out pretty early apparently) and good tunes to keep the crowd entertained.
Some of us dressed up in Haloween costumes (thus my silver gimp suit) but not enough - the events back on next year, lets have more people dressing up!
I had a nightmare when I punctured within about five pedal strokes of the gun firing. My back tyre went bang and I had to ride a whole lap on a flat tyre to get to the pits. Oh well.
The proof that it was a good event was that Laura and her sister Ellen came along and didn't hate it. Bike races that your girlfriend actually wants to come along to are the future - you heard it here first.

Ben Spurrier, Laura and me - we made the effort

This weekend was also the Inter Area cyclocross champs. Me, Ben and Gary Lingard travelled up to Leicester together in torrential rain. Can't say I was too motivated and I felt pretty knackered too - the excitement of the previous evening stopped me sleeping. 

We got there and were returned back to earth with a bang. After 1000 spectators at Herne Hill, it was back to one man and his dog in a windswept field. Oh, the glamour.

Ben did a very good ride and was first of our London B team. I sucked. In fact, I rode so badly I'm actually pretty happy that they haven't included me in the results. I guess I was down in 49th. Luckily, there's still no "I" in team.

On returning I checked out why I flatted on Saturday and I'm pretty sure I've written off a tub. What a waste of money, tub glue and time... I'm going to send it off to Pete Burgin at Tubular-Repairs.com and see if he can revive it. Fingers crossed.

Gone but not forgotten

I was just looking back through my old Flickr photos and rediscovered this picture of Lars Boom at Koksijde in 2007. It was the day I first discovered cyclocross. Until the gun fired for the elite mens' race, I'd always considered cross a freak show, but within 15minutes of the race starting I was sold and desperately making plans to buy a cross bike as soon as I got home (which I did).
Man, I wish Lars Boom was still riding. He'd be showing that punk Niels Albert how it's done, that's for sure. The guy just has class, look at the poise, the shine on his legs and the perfect colour co-ordination.  I'm not being creepy, but he just looks right in this photo, right?
It sounds like the partisan Belgian fans (and their bully-boy tactics) drove Boom to the road. Realistically, a kid with as much talent as him, especially as a non-Belgian, was always going to end up on the road, but I can't help thinking he took the plunge too soon. It's a shame he won't be racing on the cyclocross circuit this season, bar a couple of appearances. This autumn and winter are going to be a duller place without him.

A few photos from the National Trophy in Ipswich

We showed up early in Ipswich last Sunday as I wanted to take some photos and Claire Beaumont wanted me to show her all the best lines before the women's race. The weather was great and the ground, though damp was drying out quickly in the wind.
The course was a lot less technical than the previous two trophies, from my point of view at least, as you carried a lot more speed through the corners. This suited me fine as, coming from MTB'ing I enjoy the more flowy stuff a lot more. We did a couple of laps then Claire raced.
Despite a pretty spectacular start where she led for the first half a lap, she ended up in sixth, behind Gabby Day's mum. If Claire can stay on the right track (literally, not riding into the tape) she should be coming top five every race, not bad for her first season.
Photos are here:

My race went pretty good. It started bad, but ended good.
Coming to the end of the first straight, I saw a sneaky gap up the inside of a corner and tried to jump into it. Unfortunately, the guy I was trying to pass came to halt and put his foot through my front wheel, bringing me to a standstill too. That put me dead last.
I moved up quite a few places on that first lap and found myslef in a good group.
Next lap, Will Bjergfelt came steaming through our — until then fairly cohesive — group on his way back from a puncture. This split the group, with me stuck in no man's land. I was confident that most of the riders that went with Will wouldn't be able to maintain his pace, and sure enough, half a lap later I started catching riders as they got dropped. This was really good motivation and gave me the carrot I needed to chase for the rest of the race.
With one to go, I caught onto the back of a good group of four. Just as I was catching my breath to recover from the effort of bridging, the attacks started.
I made it across a couple of times, but a couple of sketchy moments on the corners made me resign myself to second last place of the group.
Still, that was good enough for 29th place, my best ever finish at a National Trophy and good enough for a couple of ranking points. The icing on the cake was not getting lapped — another first at this level.
At the start of the season, my two ambitions were to stop getting lapped and to start coming top 30. With this achieved I'm now looking ahead and thinking I want a couple of top 25's, and come January I want to come top 20 at the national champs. Anything's possible right?
This weekned it's Haloween Cross at Herne Hill on Saturday night, where I'm going to look like an absoloute idiot in a particularly unpleasant outfit, followed by the inter-area champs on Sunday.  If you see me drinikng alcohol on Saturday night after the race, feel free to give me a talking to. I'm really going to need a good night's sleep before Sunday's seriousness.

Cyclocross interviews in English

Unless you speak Flemish and can read Sporza, finding anything out about top-flight euro CX racing as an English speaker is pretty difficult. It's getting better with the likes of CXmagazine covering a lot of euro races, and riders like Jonathan Page and Ian Field blogging from Belgium, but actually getting any empathy with the "toppers" is pretty difficult.
Which is why I was please to find these two vids. I'm not a big Niels Albert fan but Stybar is an absolute dude — the guy just smashes it the whole time, which is what you want really isn't it. Yeah, Niels does that too, but I dunno, I'm British, we prefer losers and Stybar is not a big winner. Albert makes it look too easy.

Niels Albert riport - Plzen Cyclo-cross világkupa from bringavideo on Vimeo.

Zdenek Stybar riport - Plzen Cyclo-Cross világkupa from bringavideo on Vimeo.

The best camera...

is the one that's with you, so says Chase Jarvis. I was just looking at the website for his iPhone app/book (the guy's a social networking entrepreneur par excellence) and it got me looking back through my old camera phone shots. I've not got an iPhone (screw you Apple!), but I reckon this is the best I've captured with my Nokia E51's 2mp fixed focus camera.

Battersea Power Station, from the train into Victoria