Out of the freezer, into the fire: Southampton National Trophy

I had perhaps my best ever start in Southampton on Sunday. Starting from the fourth row, I somehow snuck my way through a whole heap of riders to find myself up in the top 20 at the end of the first lap. Unbelievable. Kevin was stood trackside yelling at me about how great the situation was, and I believed him. I was up with the strong guys, I just had to keep it going.
One lap later, things started to go pear shaped. I was getting knackered; I'd been punching above my weight, and I was starting to get hit back. Billy Whenman and Darren Barclay got across to me on the only real descent of the circuit, and as I tried to get round the hairpin at the bottom of the hill, I caught my STI on the course marking post and knocked myself off.
The group rode away as I untangled myself.
I sprinted off, but with the foresight that I needed to relax for a bit and recover if I wanted to avoid making mistakes. The errors kept coming though, and I crashed twice more on the next lap before I pulled my finger out and started riding well again. The whole race, I was up and down like a yo-yo — literally and figuratively.
I found myself riding round with Andrew Nichols, and together we caught Mike Cotty with about three laps to go. Things were looking good for a while and I took the lead. Nothing much happened from there on, except first, Cotty rode away — fair enough, he's a very good athlete — and then on the last lap, Nichols dropped me. He's a skinny little under 23 who goes up hills somewhat easier than me. Oh well. I came home in 31st, outside the points, so technically no better than a DNF. What a load of bollocks.
Realistically, it was quite a positive ride as I had an amazing start and I was mixing it with some good riders all race. Negatives were the lapses of concentration and the lack of strength in the final. Lessons learned — more miles needed, more skills required.
Two weeks till Bradford, scene of my first decent ride at this level when I came top 30 at the 2009 National Champs. At last year's Trophy however, I had a thoroughly shitty ride, so who knows how I'll go. One thing — my fingers are crossed that fewer than 10 Belgians turn up in Yorkshire. They're taking all the points scoring places and ruining my ranking!

Ipswich National Trophy 2010 Video

National Trophy Cyclo-Cross Round 2 - Ipswich from Kevin Knox on Vimeo.

Thought for the day

Quote from the legendary George Lois in the latest issue of the brilliant Gym Class Magazine (my copy's in the post), via the equally brilliant MAGCULTURE blog

Good fortune (new Specialized tubs) and bad fortune (broken Ultegra rear mech)

Bad — my mech snapped off after one and a half laps at today's London League

Good — full quiver of new Specialized Tracer tubs (they worked great for the lap and a half I got to use them in pretty wet, muddy conditions)

Drumming at the London League

Better pic of @thewarhead confusing the kids, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

I ripped my rear mech off during my warm up lap, so I didn't get to race today. Instead, I cheered on the other riders while Geoff played drums. More of this please — it's fun.

Adam Craig on TRP CX9 brakes

Adam Craig is a dude — check out his bike check and interview on CyclingNews

Interviewer: "So why do most people still use wide-profile Euro-style brakes?
Craig: "Because most people suck at riding, and they don't know any better. They think that the wide-profile Mafac thing is cool, which it was back in 1954"

Adam is using the new TRP CX9 brakes. See that pic down below from Mallory Park? You'll see I'm using the same brakes. That was my first race on them and they were great. I was swapping between EuroX's and CX9s on my two bikes and the CX9's made life so much easier. With good brakes you're either on the gas, or on the brakes. With normal - ineffective - brakes, you end up freewheeling the whole time so as not to pick up too much uncontrollable speed. 
Which sucks.
Anyone who tells you you don't need brakes in cyclocross is a crank who's never raced properly and/or is a crap rider. Brakes matter — get the best you can, and set them up so they work!

Specialized shows new cyclocross tubs

pic by James Huang for bikeradar (click pic for orig article)

So just hours after I posted yesterday's moan about how I didn't feel confident on my Vittoria XM tubs, I discovered that Specialized are in the early stages of producing their own cyclocross tubulars over on bikeradar.com and cyclingdirt. Trust me, this is brilliant news for amateur cyclocross racers.
It would seem that manufacturers are finally getting annoyed with having to buy their sponsored riders £500 worth of new tubulars every year from just one manufacturer — Dugast. The quality of those Dugasts might be good, but a company like Specialized wouldn't have taken kindly to Dugast's old-world delivery times, pricing and the fact that the tubs come unfinished — you have to seal the sidewalls yourself, and even then, you can only expect to get one season from a pair of Rhinos before the sidewalls rot. How hard can building tubulars be? If a one man show in Holland can dominate the market with a very idiosyncratic product, surely a company with Specialized's design, feedback and financial clout can surely do a better job?
So Specialized entering the market is good for me, and probably you too if you're in any way ambitious on the cross course. The main reason Dugast has cemented its position at the head of the market is the tread pattern of the Rhino — it's aggressive 3mm deep central tread digs in providing traction both for driving forward and for not sliding out sideways. Its one problem is that it clogs. Looking at the Terra tub above, it's very much inspired by the Rhino, but with a more open tread pattern to better shed mud. The 33mm thing is practically irrelevant: yeah, that's as wide as you're allowed to go by UCI rules, but such is the variability in tubs that Specialized has had to err on the side of caution and make these slightly narrower than 33mm to ensure they all squeeze into the commissaire's calipers.

pic by James Huang for bikeradar (click pic for orig article)

The second tread is called the Tracer and is based on the Renegade MTB tyre. I'm yet to try the MTB version of this tyre, but Burry Stander and Christophe Sauser have been racing it all season in mixed conditions, so the tread pattern itself is likely to be pretty good. My only thinking is that you can't lean a cross bike over the way you can an MTB, so that shallow tread might be limited to dryer conditions. We'll see. There's also a file tread design, but I'm not that interested in them — check out the video below for more info on them.
The Terra is undoubtedly the tread that will be most exciting to UK riders who for a long time have had a choice of Rhino's or, err, nothing (and thanks to the extortionate cost and lack of availability of Rhinos, very often chose nothing). What's also exciting is that Specialized is entering the sport in such a serious way — choice is always a good thing, and up till now we haven't had any. With any luck, it is the start of a trend, with more big companies coming into the market in the near future. Cross is on the up, and a great way of keeping your brand in the public eye during the winter months, especially now the sport is growing so quickly at a grassroots level (the people who actually buy this stuff). Personally, I don't think Specialized will be the last to challenge the dominance of the european tubular industry — exciting times all round.

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