Reminder about the ‘cross training tonight at Brittania Beach. 5:30. Hosted by Ride with Rendall. All levels and experience welcome. Looks like it will be a brilliant day – no better way to spend the evening than ripping around on the ‘cross bike.

I’ve been thinking about ‘cross training recently. (Okay – I think about it a lot…) But this past weekend has made me realize that we here in Ottawa are missing one thing – a weekly ‘cross training race. It appears that most other ‘cross meccas have one. And after all Ottawa is one of the leaders in ‘cross – we have a long-standing series (thanks to Bob, Cheryl, and Ian), we have a strong ‘cross community with a wide variety of skills and experience, and we have lots of clubs and riders who are doing something ‘cross related through-out the week. Why don’t we get together – and by this I mean – the ‘cross community and organize a weekly ‘cross “training” race.

And this is a “training” race. It is chance for all of us to get together and “race” – to try new skills in a safe and supportive environment. There are no prizes. No one cares who came first or last. It is simply for training and learning.

To accomplish this we could structure the “training” like this:

The idea is to set up a simple course. Ride the course a couple times together as a group. Then start in reverse order – basically self-seed – we start in 45 second to 1 minute increments. This way the slower people get to race for a while before being caught and everyone has incentive to catch the person ahead of them. We could do 3 or 4 laps. Take a quick break and then run the “training” race again. This gives people a chance to ride sections at race speed a few times, to get in some hard laps, and to hopefully learn from one another.

Thoughts?

See you tonight.