Weekend Preview: Ready, Set, GO (Cross)
UCI cyclocross returns to North American at Virginia's Blue Ridge GO Cross in Virginia
Hello cyclocross friends, to help celebrate our North American season subscriber drive, we are making this week’s Weekend Preview available to everyone. If you enjoyed the information and at least some of the bad jokes, these Weekend Previews are one of the many things you get as a monthly or annual subscriber. We would love to have your support as we move into the Bulletin’s first domestic season.
Somehow on this week’s episode of the Media Pit, the conversation meandered to the topic of cycling victory celebrations. Specifically, it was Cory Williams doing the famed “Rock the Baby” NBA player Russell Westbrook developed to taunt notorious provocateur Patrick Beverley back in 2018.
Westbrook was recently traded to the LA Lakers, the Williams brothers’ hometown team, and Bill suggested Williams’ deployment of the Rock the Baby might be related to which team Westbrook is playing for at any given moment. This was obviously some next-level conspiracy theorizing that I would be all about investigating if there wasn’t the pressing deadline of finishing this preview.
Bill’s musings, however, got me thinking about cycling victory celebrations.
After chatting with a rider this week about the North American CX Rider Anonymous survey, the conversation turned to athletes as entertainers, which they very much are. Taking that a step further, it got me pondering victory celebrations and how cyclocross is probably the perfect discipline to try out and deploy creative post-up celebrations. Kind of how NFL players practice their end zone celebrations, cyclocross racers could practice their post-up celebrations.
Unlike a road race, where riders are probably in shock to win because it happens so rarely or a crit where you can literally die with one misstep, cyclocross race winners usually have a few seconds—or 3/4 of the race, in Mathieu van der Poel’s case—to think about how they’re going to celebrate their win.
Now there have certainly been a few worth remembering, but they are usually the exceptions to the standard two-arms-in-the-air rule.
One that comes to mind is Wout van Aert’s Titanic post up I first remember seeing at Valkenburg Worlds and then again at World Cup Overijse last winter.
Actually, now that I think about it, Wout is a man who loves a good post-up, which is perhaps not surprising given he is the most American Belgian in cycling. Last week, he made the Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence Power Rankings for his Gun Show Woot post-up, so he’s even doing it on the road. Flex on Woot, flex on.
Closer to home, Friend of the Bulletin Rebecca Fahringer has developed her patented T-Bex post-up as well as deploying other techniques such as the finger guns that teammate Kerry Werner is also a fan of. (Def click over for the T-Bex)
Of course, try to develop a signature post-up, and it could go awry. I remember one Junior rider who did something silly in a race several years ago, and the photos of it did not look as cool as it maybe felt IRL. Then there was the time at the Trek CX Cup in 2015 that Jeremy Powers was handed a giant American flag that nearly knocked him off his bike. That almost did not go over so well.
I get that sponsors want something traditional that looks good on social, but hey, there’s gotta be some leeway to make victory post-ups more fun. IDK.
Saturday and Sunday - Virginia’s Blue Ridge GO Cross
Elite Women: 2:15 p.m. EDT (both days)
Elite Men: 3:30 p.m. EDT (both days)
Broadcast: Next week, it’s happening!
Recent Results
Elite Women
2019 (Sat) - 1. Rebecca Fahringer 2. Caroline Mani 3. Sunny Gilbert
2019 (Sun) - 1. Caroline Mani 2. Rebecca Fahringer 3. Caroline Nolan
2018 (Sat) - 1. Caroline Mani
2018 (Sun) - 1. Crystal Anthony
Elite Men
2019 (Sat) - 1. Curtis White 2. Kerry Werner 3. Travis Livermon
2019 (Sun) - 1. Kerry Werner 2. Curtis White 3. Eric Thompson
2018 (Sat) - 1. Kerry Werner
2018 (Sun) - 1. Kerry Werner
Race Preview
Well folks, it’s finally here: the first day of cyclocross school after a one-year hiatus. One might even be so inclined to say North American cyclocross … is BACK.
While Virginia’s Blue Ridge GO Cross has typically been a more regional affair during its two-year run as the first race on the North American calendar, this year it takes on a much bigger significance thanks to the folks over at the UCI.
As we wrote about last week and covered on the Media Pit, as of September 21, the only races that count for UCI points for North American riders are the Oostend World Championships and the two days of GO Cross. That means for most riders, including a number of big hitters for both the women and men, the choice for this weekend was to race at GO Cross and score a top-10 placing to score points, or be subjected to the cruel fate of the call-up position lottery next weekend in the USCX series-opening Rochester Cyclocross.
For the Elite Women, four riders return with UCI points from the World Championships that outpace the points they would be able to snag at GO Cross—Clara Honsinger, Maghalie Rochette, Rebecca Fahringer, and Kaitie Keough. Honsinger is sitting pretty with 280 points for her 4th-place ride and Rochette, Fahringer, and Keough are all guaranteed first-row call-ups at Rochester next week with their hauls from Oostend.
Accordingly, Keough is back at home in Wisconsin racing in her home state series to kick off her final season as a profession—she took home two wins the opening weekend in Milwaukee—and Rochette is traveling to West Newfield, Maine for Deer Farm Cyclocross, which features a cool $1,000 for the race winner.
Fahringer is the only of the four racing in Roanoke, and why not, she has done quite well there during the event’s two previous runnings. Fahringer finished 4th and 5th in 2018 and then took home a dub and a silver in 2019. As the defending U.S. Cyclocross Nationals silver-medalist, Fahringer returns to Roanoke as this year’s headlining rider for the Elite Women.
Caroline Mani is another rider who has had success at GO Cross, with 2 of the race’s 4 wins, and she returns again this season. Mani was an x-factor in the 2019 domestic season, turning in several strong performances and helping to animate the fronts of those races with her characteristic fierce racing style. One might even say it was Pactimo Fierce, because that’s the program she is racing with this season.
Other past podium finishers on the start list include Sunny Gilbert and Crystal Anthony, and local hero Carla Williams will also be starting representing the hometown team—Deschutes Brewery—the race’s presenting sponsor.
On the Men’s side, hoo-boy, this weekend has the potential to be a banger. While Curtis White and his 60 UCI points earned at Oostend Worlds had the choice of staying home and watching from afar, he returns to Roanoke after taking home a first and second in 2019. In fact, traveling back to the season that was 2019—aka the Year of Kenny v. Curty—it was at GO Cross that the famed rivalry between White and Werner was born, as the two competitors split the weekend for the first of several times that season.
While White was doing battle in the Belgian winter, the rest of the Men’s field was not racing in Europe, which means there are a crazy number of unknowns coming into the season. Probably foremost among these is three-time U.S. National Champion Stephen Hyde, who will be racing with a team other than Cannondale p/b CyclocrossWorld for the first time in over a half-decade. Hyde is racing with the Steve Tilford Foundation program this year, and is seeking to join Jeremy Powers, Jonathan Page, Don Myrah, and Clark Natwick as the other male 4-time national champions.
Werner is the adopted hometown hero at GO Cross after moving to Roanoke last year. Werner has been racing the criterium scene with Project Echelon in between bikepacking trips and workdays at the Fallon Park course this summer. He has won 3 of the 4 GO Crosses thus far and is hoping to return to the form he showed in 2019.
While White, Werner, and Hyde were the top of the North American class in recent years, there are also a good half-dozen riders looking to knock them from their lofty perch. Our second-favourite Canadian Michael van den Ham is making the trip east with a little bit to prove after a so-so 2019 campaign and a snub from his peers earlier this week, Eric Brunner makes the jump from the U23 category, Lance Haidet hopes to be out here breaking through to that upper echelon of riders, Drew Dizzle Dillman is trying to cash in on promise he has shown as an Elite, and Caleb Swartz is also graduating from the U23 category. Throw in Belgian privateer Gosse van der Meer and his signature ‘stache, and it should be a great way to welcome cyclocross BACK in North America.
The Course
Virginia’s Blue Ridge GO Cross is a unique event in that Roanoke’s Fallon Park is dedicated specifically to cyclocross. We wrote about the park, the event, and it’s history in our interview with race director Frank Deal, so I won’t spend too much time going back to covered ground.
I decided to outsource the course description to Deal, because lazy. Or because I haven’t yet attended GO Cross. One of the two!
“Fallon Park favors no one but can reward balance. Every feature and section flows into the next. Long speedy straightaways laced together with turns, some tight, some Talladega wide.
Power—A rider will definitely need power for the straights and climbs.
Driving—If you wanna go fast in Roanoke, you better be a dang good bike driver.
There's plenty of free speed found inside the tape that'll reward anyone able to trust their tires' limits. Stronger riders can turn the screws and pull away on the straights only to find the highly skilled bike driver pulling ahead in the tech sections.
The key after the start is to hit the sandpit in a good position, crucial for Lap 1. The sandpit will pop up sooner on Day 1 than Day 2, but with a long, fluffy, freshly tilled pit for each Elite race, if not in the front, riders will be running.
The infamous horseshoe feature will either come shortly after (Day 1) or shortly before (Day 2) the sandpit. It's another permanent feature at Fallon with sunken utility poles and a steep, sweeping off-camber turn at the bottom. Everything comes in threes, right?
After the sandpit and horseshoe, riders will hit the stairs. The approach to the stairs is new for 2021—riders won't be able to carry nearly as much momentum into the stairs. Deep breath, remount and take the moment to recover or hammer before a buffet of turns and off-camber twists transition the riders to a steep power climb through a short stretch of woods.
[A straight gravel road that follows] might be the last chance to rest before the finish, as there's a steep paved climb coming next. The paved climb, part of the Roanoke River Greenway System, will crest and then descend through chicanes that will scrub speed (and reward good driving) before one final feature.
New for 2021, we've added one more climb! It'll be a power climb with a few off-camber swoops, then a stochastic swooping descent to the start/finish stretch.”
Here’s Bill’s track walk from 2019:
Saturday - Ethias Cross Beringen
Elite Women: 10:15 am
Elite Men: 11:30 am
Broadcast: GCN+ (U.S. and Canada)
Recent Results
Elite Women
2020: 1. Denise Betsema 2. Ceylin Alvarado 3. Eva Lechner
2019: 1. Annemarie Worst
Elite Men
2020: 1. Toon Aerts 2. Eli Iserbyt 3. Lars van der Haar
2019: 1. Quinten Hermans
Race/Course Preview
Last week, Belgian Cyclocross had an agrarian vibe, with Turnip Cross kicking off the 2021/22 season. This week, it’s all industry with Slag Heap Cross in Beringen.
The event takes place at the abandoned be-MINE industrial facility that features a giant hill made from industrial waste that has industriously (?) been turned into a mountain bike park. With the European Championships taking place at the VAM-Berg in the Netherlands that was created from a landfill, Slag Heap Cross will provide good practice for riding up and then down.
Last season, Denise Betsema dropped a bomb on the Women’s field, pretty much riding away from everyone in the race’s opening climb. In the Men’s race, Toon Aerts took advantage of a fast start by Bulletin favorite Our Maan Daan Soete to take the victory.
There are no real surprises on either the Elite Women or Men’s start lists this week, and they are similar to last week’s season opener at Turnip Cross.
I don’t want to spend too much discussing Euro ‘cross right now since our focus is squarely on North America, but one rider who could really use a good ride in Beringen is our old friend Yara Kastelijn. Kastelijn was visibly upset after her 5th-place finish at Turnip Cross, and with like a million young Dutch riders coming up through the ranks, her spot in the Dutch pecking order is not guaranteed.
Kastelijn excels at climbing—her breakout win was at Koppenbergcross in 2019—and with the Slag Heap course going basically up then down, it is a perfect opportunity for her to recreate her Koppenberg magic and grab some momentum heading into the second half of the preseason before Superprestige Gieten and then the U.S. World Cups.
Optional Weekend Soundtrack
There is a certain mystique about Virginia and especially the Blue Ridge Mountains that make them ripe for the muses of Americana. There were a lot of choices this week, but we will once again go with a double feature, this time with an indie country-ish vibe.
First up, Blue Ridge Mountain by Hurray for the Riff Raff
And second, Blue Ridge Mountains by the Fleet Foxes
Rider I Want to Write About
Michael van den Ham
With North American cyclocross BACK, there are like a million storylines to choose to write about, and hopefully there will be plenty of time to get to all of them.
Since the Anonymous Rider Survey is hot off the presses, I figured we would start with the rider to the strongest claim of being snubbed by his peers. Van den Ham came in a distant 9th among North American riders, and with any luck (for us, the fans) will use the snub as an excuse to start some CX Beef and ride with a vengeance these first few weeks of the season.
With Maghalie Rochette grabbing the number two spot for the Elite Women, it is hard to argue the Van den Snub was a result of the men overlooking Canada, and Van den Ham returns this year hoping to re-establish an upward trajectory after 2019 campaign that saw him kind of standing still for most of the season.
Van den Ham started racing on the UCI circuit in earnest in 2012 at the ripe age of 20, and it wasn’t until 2017 that his years of work started to pay off. Van den Ham won his first of three-straight (and running) Canadian National Championships, finished 3rd at Pan-Ams in Louisville a week later, and had a steady string of podiums during the domestic season.
The next season, again won Canadian Nats and then took 2nd at Pan-Ams in a heartbreaking sprint loss to Curtis White. Despite not getting the Pan-Am jersey, the now-not-as-young Canadian was beginning to put things together and seemed poised to make another run at becoming the first male Canadian Pan-Am champ in 2019.
After a slow start to the 2019 campaign and a disappointing 6th at Pan-Ams, Van den Ham came alive at the end of the 2019 domestic campaign, winning 3 of his final races in the U.S. and then heading to Europe where he scored a 24th-place finish at Switzerland Worlds. Throw in a personal-best World Cup finish of 17th at the World Cup Dendermonde slogfest, and one could argue that Van den Ham has the results and the momentum to back up a placing in the North American pecking order that is much higher than 9th.
That said, with everything and everyone beginning anew in 2021, the Canadian has to do his speaking with the pedals. I will not venture to say that two strong results from Van den Ham would be a STATEMENT, but they would go a long way in letting his peers know that the only thing they should be blaming Canada for is letting Van den Ham beat them.
Gimmick Watch!
We are one Media Pit into the 2021/22 season and no gimmicks were born during the recording of the podcast. I would love to add some North American gimmicks, especially if riders are up for it, so I am all ears when it comes to ideas!
Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence Power Rankings
Triple Woot
Curtis White, Riding the Stairs
Thibau Nys, U23 European Road Champ
Thibau’s White Bibs
The Jumbo-Visma kid
Stoked for North American cross! Great preview Zach, thanks!