More thoughts about cyclocross

Back in the late 1990s, I spent several years working seasonal jobs in Park County Colorado. Park County was perhaps the worst place I've ever lived to do road riding--there were only two roads relatively shoulder-less roads that intersected the little mountain town I resided in and they were death highways, filled with RVs from Kansas, SUVs from the Denver suburbs, and angry mountain men in Subarus all bound to run cyclists off the road. (And I'm perfectly serious about that). I was still, at heart, a roadie, and I raced many crits on the front range, but I spent most of my time on a mountain bike. (Tater, remember those awesome trails?) I had a Diamond Back Apex that just happened to be one of the sweetest rigs you could buy for $800 back in 1994. Man that was an amazing bike, a classic, chromoly frame, LX components. It got stolen a few years ago and I felt like a piece of me had died.

I moved to Columbia for graduate school in 1999, and still tried to keep mountain biking, but it just isn't the same around here. I've ridden my Barracuda (which in itself is a relic) twice in the last two years.

So, I'm about as diehard a roadie as you will find. I love everything about road bikes, the road scene and even, on the very rare occasions that I do it anymore, road racing (my attachment to road racing anymore seems to be watching the success of my friends in the sport and reading Cyclingnews.com). Between March and September I don't like to even touch anything but my road bike.

But I still find cyclocross season to be the sweetest season of all. There is something about getting out on the Cross bike--you only really have to put in an hour or so with some hard efforts and you get a little training in. The leaves are usually turning and out on those limestone trails you don't have to even think about traffic. You can just purely zone out. You can still feel like a roadie, but the whole pace is slowed way, way down. Cross practices gives you that little bit of competition, but mostly its just hanging out with friends and getting in some pure suffering. Its the absolutely best time in the world. And, one can always fantasize about the next spring, while out there puttering around on the cx bike, and all the possibilities of some kind of exciting road campaign, which for me is just a little dream, plumbing the years of my past.

But I do know that somehow, folks are just getting stronger in their late 30s and early 40s. And there are all kinds of possibilities for athletes in the middle stages of life.