Cyclo-cross: More Donner Party
than Dinner Party
by Patrick O'Grady

But I'll live on, and I'll be strong, 'cause it just ain't my cross to bear.
-Gregg Allman, It's Not My Cross to Bear

CYCLO-CROSS. IT'S GOT A HYPHEN, as in full-blown, pain-filled and deep-freeze, double-jointed words no cyclist likes to contemplate when paying good money to pin on a number and go round in circles for an hour. Any activity that requires two or more words joined at the hip to describe is bound to be painful and unpleasant: anaerobic-threshold intervals.

However, cyclo-crossers like it that way. "Looks like great weather for a race!" means one thing to a road toad and another thing altogether to a 'crosser. The first is contemplating the expansion of his geek-tan by rolling up his sleeves and shorts, then sucking wheel until the final sprint. The second is contemplating using the driving sleet to mask his attempt to cut to the inside of a rider who is skittish about off-camber corners shot through with ruts, soupy mud and what may just be a deceased citizen racer.

This is not so much a callous disregard for human life as a neighborly, albeit Darwinian attempt to help the skittish rider improve his cornering skills. 'Cross riders, unlike their counterparts on road, track and trail, are so delighted to see another sap in the soup that they will actually show you what you need to know in order to put them into the trees next time around. But you've got to be a quick learner, and an even quicker healer.

This emphasis on technique over technology is rare in a sport whose adherents have been known to spend thousands to shave a few grams off their bikes before a hill-climb time trial, then celebrate their impending victory by washing down a bucket of the Colonel's best with a suitcase of Bud. Both will reappear in spectacular fashion at the finish line, while the timers are packing up their gear, but they won't look nearly as appetizing. And the colors clash with brushed titanium.

'Crossers also gobble grease and swill beer -- but they can afford better, tastier grease and beer, and more of it, too, because they don't piss away the kid's college fund using Unobtainium® spoke nipples to build a self-delusional Stairway to Heaven. What's more, grease and beer are excellent internal lubricants, and all veteran 'crossers know that a good dump in the morning will save you more weight than all the beryllium seat posts in the Colorado Cyclist catalog.

And this in an obscure cycling sub-sect where featherweight frippery can really make a difference in where you finish, or if. After all, you're running around half the time, picking the bike up and putting it down like a bad novel with some good dirty parts; the sonofabitch should pack less weight than a Clinton campaign promise.

Still, most 'crossers build up their thousand-dollar framesets with prehistoric parts they find under the car seat, behind the couch or on five-dollar, yard-sale bikes: "Hey, check it out, man ... a five-speed bar-con, and it's friction, too!" Half-archaeologist, half-broke and all-consumed with the thought of just getting out there and chasing other lunatics through the swamp, your average 'crosser will build a 25-pound bike that is a bouillabaisse of Weinmann, Suntour and Mafac, then use it to kick your 19-pound, ErgoPowered ass up one hill and down the next until all you can taste is the spiked sole of his Sidi.

Like prehistoric bar-end shifters and Lyotard pedals with doubled steel toe clips and straps, anachronisms like wool jerseys are commonplace in 'cross. Stiff nipples are one thing on, say, Demi Moore; however, you're unlikely to see her prancing around wearing a pair of those and a cyclo-cross bike. Unless it's a platinum Merlin, she's pregnant again, and the venue is the cover of Vanity Fair. 'Crossers like to keep their nipples toasty when they trip over a barricade and slide face-first down a muck-covered slope into a half-frozen pond. Note the hyphen: face-first.

What's wrong with these people? Sniff a little too much glue while sticking those knobby sewups on, did they? Their races start with field sprints and end at car washes, and in between they're all running around wearing perfectly rideable bikes. It's November, for God's sake. They should be roasting turkeys, not acting like them.

But look at their faces; why, they appear to be having fun. Sure, the ones who are racing have that gut-shot look in their eyes (gut-shot), but that's bike racing for you. If it don't hurt, you ain't trying. And sucking wheel in cyclo-cross gets you little more than a faceful of whatever happens to be on the ground at the time. Avoid courses at equestrian centers and stockyards, by the way.

It's the racers who are done for the day that catch your eye. While roadies generally heft the bike onto the roof rack, throw around a few "if-onlys" and goose the old Volvo toward the nearest cappuccino vendor, mud-spattered 'crossers can be found standing around the course, shouting encouragement and friendly abuse, handing up water bottles and dispensing useful information about time and space: "Dude, he's right behind you, about five seconds back -- you'd better try to ride that log this time around." Picture mountain biking before MTV discovered it and you'll get the idea. Watch the riders whose categories have yet to toe the line. They're getting the feel of the course by running it or riding it on a backup bike, discussing its interesting gravitational anomalies, treacherous geographical oddities and incoming weather patterns, occasionally pausing to see how a goo-slathered racer handles them: "Whoa, I'll bet that hurt -- I'm running that one. Anybody got a tourniquet?"

Perhaps the best yardstick for judging cyclo-cross is the way its acolytes handle neophytes. Newbies on road and trail often find themselves ignored like a bad smell, or vilified outright; hooked, hollered at and finally, hammered. A first-time 'crosser's timid questions about componentry or technique is likely to be answered by a chorus of voices, and even a quick demonstration or impromptu clinic. He's still going to get beaten like a tom-tom once the gun goes off -- but it won't hurt as much.

Emotionally, that is. In the smörgasbord that is cycling, 'cross is and will remain more Donner party than dinner party. But there's always another seat at the table.