From the Rink to the 'Cross Course, Tyler Clark is the New Canadian National Champion
With his college days behind him, Tyler Clark is back racing 'cross this season and he made the most of it with his first Elite National Championship
Tyler Clark had a solid start to the cyclocross season during the first three USCX weekends, but even he would tell you that his results did not necessarily make him a contender in his first Elite Canadian National Championship race. That all changed somewhere between the Charm City and Falmouth.
You could say home is where the heart is or something cliche like that, but for Clark what was really important was taking a break. After a long mountain bike season that culminated with the Mont-Sainte-Anne and Snowshoe World Cups, he just needed some time off.
Clark returned to Pan-Ams rejuvenated and turned in what he called a “breakout ride” at the Pan-American Championships, finishing 7th. More so than the result, it was that he was feeling strong and able to keep up with the intense pace of the racing at a rather fast and intense track. That result and a strong ride on Sunday at the Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross set him up physically and mentally for Saturday’s Canadian Nationals.
Clark responded to the wet conditions with a championship ride, taking advantage of a mistake by Quinton Disera and riding home the last 2.5 laps with an Elite National Championship dangling in front of him.
I caught up with the new Elite Men’s Canadian National Champ about his ride and the super important questions about his forthcoming Maple Leaf Kit.
Interview: Tyler Clark, Elite Men’s Canadian National Champion
Zach Schuster: With these National Champion interviews, I always gotta ask, have you taken the jersey off yet?
Tyler Clark: I have. I had to wear it the next day, so it's all muddy. I had to take it off to clean it.
Zach Schuster: That's right. You had that race the next day. Leading into the race one thing that was interesting that you said in the interview we did prior to the race, you talked about how your mindset changed after Falmouth. What happened in between the races in early October-ish and that weekend? I mean, you had a great weekend.
Tyler Clark: I came off the mountain bike season and we ended pretty late because of those North American World Cups. I took it pretty easy for a few weeks and then did a little bit of prep for those first three weekends of the USCX, and it was enough to get me in good shape, but I think I was missing a bit of that top end. I remember at GO Cross thinking in the first lap, "Are we really going to be sprinting out of every corner like this for the whole race? I can't do this."
I was missing a little bit of the top end, which meant I could hang on for the beginning of the race and then keep fading. Then after Charm City, I had three or four weeks at home because I skipped the World Cups. I got a good block of training in there. I think that was pretty key for when we went to Falmouth for Pan-Ams.
Zach Schuster: So it was more physical than mental?
Tyler Clark: I think so. I went into the season wanting to do well at the USCX races, but after the first couple of races, I think I was not quite there. I had to readjust a bit. Even the first half of the race at Pan-Ams I was riding kind of where I had been in the early part of the season, and then kind of rode into that race. That race was probably the turning point for me mentally. I felt like I had figured out I had the legs to keep going and follow those moves. Mid-Pan-Ams was probably where I figured out I'd be able to hang out with those guys.
Zach Schuster: I think it might have been Sunday, you were throwing down. I was looking through my photos, and I had a couple with you on the front. I remember you being at the front of that race asserting yourself.
Tyler Clark: I had a little better start on that day because a couple of guys were missing. I went from the third row on Saturday to the second row on Sunday. I got up into that top ten earlier than I had the days before. Then they all kind of slowed up in the pit, and I knew I wanted to be further up in the group, and the only way to move up was to go all the way to the front. I was like, "Ok, we'll go and see what happens after that." As we got further into the race, I found myself following some moves I wouldn't have thought I could, so that was pretty cool.
Zach Schuster: I am biased, obviously, and one of the cool things about having Maghs and Michael as the champs out of Canada is they race cyclocross full-time. They're dedicated to the sport, and we get to see that jersey a lot. You made a commitment to the USCX series, and that's one of the reasons why I was excited to interview you for the preview. What went into that decision and what had to fall into place to make that happen this year?
Tyler Clark: I had done full seasons as a Junior, but then I went to Brevard College for school. We did all that Collegiate stuff in the fall, so when we got to school at the start of 'cross season through the end of October, it was all Collegiate mountain biking. That took away from the time I could spend on the 'cross bike.
I think for those four years, my first weekend was always Cincinnati, and then I'd be able to do Hendersonville, Pan-Ams, and Nationals. This year not having school in the fall, I wanted to do more 'cross than I ended up doing, but the mountain bike season was just a little more racing than I was initially expecting.
When I figured out the USCX was a little bit bigger this year and the race weekends worked out, I thought it was a good thing to target. A series makes the season a little bit more exciting. I'm not really chasing points because I had no intention of going to Europe and for us, if you have one point, you make front row at Nationals. The series provided something to chase all season.
Zach Schuster: What is it about Brevard that attracts all you Canadians?
Tyler Clark: Honestly, for us it's one of the closest places you can ride year-round, especially mountain bikes. Tyler Orschel was the first one to go there. He found Brevard on one of the Ontario team's winter training projects. He had been at school for the year, so I talked to him during that year. I had been at a ski academy in Vermont for the last two years of high school, and there's a cycling team there, so the coach of that team also kind of introduced me to Collegiate cycling.
Tyler Orschel was kind of my way into that team, so I knew the team was great and the riding in Brevard is awesome. It just kind of made sense.
Zach Schuster: I was looking at the results from the NCGP and was like, "There are so many Canadians on this results sheet." Orschel won the National Championship last year. Owen's down there, right? All kinds of Canadians.
Tyler Clark: We all got pretty into the whole Collegiate scene and doing well at Nationals. Every year after Nationals, we would message all our friends back home in Canada and see who's thinking about going to university next year and try to get them down to Brevard so we can keep doing well at Nationals. It's been really fun.
Zach Schuster: So stealing the jersey away from the Americans, huh?
Tyler Clark: It seems like the top Americans keep getting recruited to the Colorado schools, so our advantage has been to go to Canada and see who we can find who wants to go college in the U.S. This year we had good luck again; I think four or five more Canadians joined the team.
Zach Schuster: Enough about college. For Nationals, in your pre-race interview you said you were stoked about the potential for weather. What were conditions like and how that play to your advantage on Saturday?
Tyler Clark: It rained the night before pre-ride, I guess. When we went and checked it out a couple of days before the race, the course was dry. We showed up with dry tires for pre-ride. Even with the little bit of rain we got, the course got really slippery, so then I switched to mud tires for that for pre-ride. Then the whole next day, I was expecting it to rain. The forecast said rain, but it kept getting pushed back. All I had brought was some dry Vittoria Mix tires and then full Limus muds. I was getting a little worried it was going to be a little too fast for full muds, but then we were on the start line, and it started raining and kept raining the rest of the race. It worked out really well.
The ground was weird. It was super hard-packed, so ruts never really formed. You were always kind of sliding around on top, so the mud tires ended up being a really good choice.
Zach Schuster: One question I always have is does mountain biking prepare you to be a cyclocross racer, especially in weather? Does being a mountain biker help you in races like that?
Tyler Clark: I'd say so. I'd say the mountain biking helps a bit more with some of the technical features, even if it's a dry course. At Pan-Ams, I found in the more singletrack sections that mountain biking helped a lot in those. In the mud, it's a little different because we don't get a ton of muddy races when we're mountain biking. It's definitely a different feel.
The last couple of years, there has been a Canada Cup race when it's rained three years in a row, so that's been some of the best practice because it's rooty and rocky and you're sliding everywhere. You get a good feel for it every year before the 'cross season starts, and it works out really well. I feel like the last couple of 'cross seasons we haven't had too many mud races. This year we at least had Rochester and Charm City, but last year, I think it was dry all the way up to U.S. Nationals.
Zach Schuster: There was Cincy Day 2, but that was the only one I really remember.
Tyler Clark: Last year we did Cincy and Hendersonville and U.S. Nationals for the Collegiate racing, and I was bummed because Hendersonville was really dry and fast. I've done that race when it's wet, and it's been a blast. I'd like to see more muddy races in the future.
Zach Schuster: There was some live-tweeting, but we didn't get much about Saturday's race. How did things play out?
Tyler Clark: I wanted to lead from the beginning because the start straight was short--it couldn't haven't been more than 100 meters long--and then it went into this section that was on a disc golf course. A lot of foot traffic had been through there, so it was super hard-packed with a bit of greasy mud on top. I wanted to lead through that so I didn't get caught behind someone who made a mistake and lose the wheel right away.
I got the holeshot and was able to lead through that section and even get myself a bit of a gap. Then a group of five or six of us formed pretty early. It was mostly mountain bikers. Gunnar Holmgren led for a little bit. Tyler Orschel was there. Van den Ham, Brody Sanderson, and Quinton Disera joined a little later because he started on the second row.
Gunnar was riding really strong. He was definitely using some of the power sections to his advantage. That strung the group out a bit. Then it became me, Gunnar, and Quinton. The three of us kind of rode together for a little bit. Then with three or four laps to go, Quinton went to the front on that same disc golf section and really pushed the pace there. The two of us got ourselves a handful of seconds, and then he pushed the pace for the next couple of laps. That's where we got our selection.
Quinton didn't have a pit bike, and because the course was so fresh, we were picking up a lot of grass. I was able to pit in the second half of the third to last lap and managed to get ahead of him on one section. Then on this off-camber they had next to a soccer field, he made a bit of a mistake and fell over into the tape. That gave me a little bit of room, and from there, it was all three of us time-trialing with 10, 15 seconds between us.
Zach Schuster: So you have a gap. It's a muddy course. Your competitor just went into the tape. The Elite National Championship you've been coveting is in front of you. What was it like the last couple of laps like not screwing up?
Tyler Clark: I definitely had to keep myself focused. I could kind of feel myself drifting a little bit thinking about, "Oh maybe I can win this race." And then I would be like, "I need to focus," because it was the kind of course where you could make mistakes really easily and lose a lot of time. I was keeping myself focused on the technical sections and making sure I was riding them smoothly. I didn't really have to push it because I had the gap, and as long as I stayed upright and smooth, I was holding time pretty well.
There were probably three or four longer gravel straights, and there it was just head-down as hard as I could go at each one so Quinton couldn't come back to me. For the first lap and a half I was out by myself it was just full gas trying to stay focused on keeping it going. Then the last half lap, I was able to slow it down a little bit and enjoy that last half lap of racing. Most of the crowd was around that off-camber section, which was maybe 3 or 4 minutes from the finish, so it was cool to get there with a gap and listen to everyone cheering me on there.
Zach Schuster: In your pre-race interview, you talked about what it would mean to win Nationals—I don't think that made my final edit—so you're a young dude, you knocked off Van den Ham, what did it feel like winning?
Tyler Clark: It was pretty wild. It's been a while since I won Junior Nationals, and that honestly didn't really compare. My brother was out there filming and watching and my dad was in the pits, so it was cool to have them there. We've had a pretty good crew in this area that's been doing a lot of 'cross this year, and most of them are younger, so they were all on the side cheering me on. Being able to win in front of all those people I knew was pretty awesome.
It's not really something you get when you're racing in the U.S. races because most people are cheering for the U.S. guys, as they should be. So to have a race where you're being cheered on was pretty special.
Zach Schuster: We don't dislike you!
Tyler Clark: For sure. You're going to cheer for the people you know. So to have a whole bunch of people at this race who know me was great.
Zach Schuster: I've seen it with Curtis this season in the Northeast. Everyone just goes nuts for him because he's been racing in the Northeast for his entire life.
Tyler Clark: When we were at Pan-Ams, I was able to be with him for a little bit, and we'd come around every corner and there's someone cheering him on.
Zach Schuster: There's a ton of talent at your age level in Canada. Your brother is quite good. Ian [Ackert] is coming up. What's it been like being part of a pretty good class of athletes from your country?
Tyler Clark: We kind of all grew up racing in this area, mostly for the same team. It's Stimulus-Orbea now, but it's gone through a few different forms. When I was on it, it was Centurion - Next Wave. I was on that team with Gunnar [Holmgren] and Brody Sanderson, so it's been pretty cool growing up racing with those guys. Everyone lives maybe an hour from each other, so we grew up racing and training together here and there.
We've had some pretty sweet programs the last few years. Mostly focused on mountain or road, but everyone kind of crosses over in the fall to race 'cross. Having all those guys to race with and feed off of has been really awesome.
Zach Schuster: My thought with you and Ava winning was kind of the future is here for Canadian 'cross, but I think Van den Ham has been a legit representative of the sport and for Canadian 'cross. Beating him, wearing the jersey next after him, what has he meant to you as a younger rider coming up in the sport?
Tyler Clark: As long as I've been racing 'cross, he's been the top guy in Canada. I started mostly as a first-year Junior, and he was already kind of our top guy getting our best results at the World Cups and stuff, so I've been looking up to him for a while now. Being able to race against him for the past few seasons has been pretty awesome. Then this year, normally I'm watching him from a few spots back, but I've been able to race with him and against him.
He's been really good for the sport in Canada. Other than Maghs, him, and Sidney McGill now, we haven't really had too many people who are totally focused on 'cross. It's been cool to see him keep the sport alive in Canada, especially with us not having Nationals for so many years.
Being able to take the jersey after him is really special. I'm kind of looking forward to next year to being able to wear the jersey. He's done such a great job racing all over North America and going over to Europe, so I'd like to do that as much as possible.
Zach Schuster: So that means we'll be seeing you at least for the USCX series if not more next year?
Tyler Clark: I'd like to. For sure the USCX, and I'd like to get a few more races in there. I don't know about Europe. Probably not this year because it's a little late now, and I've had a really long season. But North America next year, I would like to get some more racing in and make the most of my time in the jersey.
Zach Schuster: Canada has such a strong focus on mountain biking and you can literally get paid to do it. What about 'cross brings you back? This day and age you have to be committed to it.
Tyler Clark: It's definitely hard in Canada because we have one UCI race and it's the day after Nationals every year. It's hard to be fully committed as a Canadian because it involves a lot of travel. You're always going down to the U.S. for races or spending a couple of months in Europe. It's a tough discipline to compete in, but it is just so much fun.
Riding the full circuit as a Junior was a blast, and ever since then, I've wanted to get back to doing more of it. I always got a little taste of it every year, but never a full season. Finally getting that chance this year and hopefully the next few seasons is really awesome.
Silver Goose, where Pan-Ams was, had a UCI weekend the year before, so it would be cool to see some more racing at venues like that to make it more feasible to be a full-time 'cross racer.
Zach Schuster: Ok, so now I've got probably the two most important questions here. One, where did you come up with the idea of doing numbers on your jersey?
Tyler Clark: All of the guys on the team grew up playing hockey, so we thought it would be pretty cool to add numbers to have a bit of a Canadian hockey theme. My brother Owen did the design of the jersey. He was playing AAA hockey until two years ago now, so it's a memento of his time of playing hockey and having to give up that to pursue cycling and go to school at Brevard.
It's been pretty cool. It makes it easy to see on the livestream. We first noticed at the Fayetteville mountain bike races. When they've got the back shot, you can find us a little easier.
Zach Schuster: It also helps us distinguish you, you're 44 right? from your brother. What number is he?
Tyler Clark: He's 93.
Zach Schuster: Ok, so now you're going to have the Maple Leaf. Do you get number 1 on it? Number 22 for the year that you won? What number is going to be on the new kit?
Tyler Clark: I think it will still be 44. That was my number when I played hockey, so I think I'll stick with that. Owen has already been on Adobe Illustrator getting a jersey ready for next year, so he's pretty excited and I'm stoked to see what he comes up with.
Zach Schuster: I hope you continue to be successful and hockey is the new soccer for cyclocross. Right, Fem van Empel, soccer. So maybe with you and Owen, hockey is to North American cyclocross what soccer is to the Dutch.
Tyler Clark: For sure.
Zach Schuster: Cool man. Congrats again. Super awesome to hear that you won. I was stoked to hear that. Admittedly, in part because you were one of the guys I interviewed for my preview, but I think that's a testament to how you raced at Falmouth. You were on it that weekend.
Tyler Clark: Thanks. It seemed to be a good breakout ride and it came at the perfect time. I got a little nervous because I had that weekend, then Gunnar got two podiums at Noho, and then Orschel did it the following weekend. I was like, "Oh god, this is going to be a legit race for sure." And you never know what Van den Ham is going to pull up with at Nationals. He's clearly pretty good at that race. It was a nerve-wracking but exciting race to go into.
Zach Schuster: Thanks much. I look forward to seeing you in the jersey next year.
Tyler Clark: Looking forward to it.