I made my way to Brittania Beach last night for the Ride with Rendall cyclo-cross training night. I’m super happy I went. A great group of people – all skill levels and club affiliations met in the upper parking lot. We warmed up by playing a bit of follow the leader.

Then we hit the uphill barrier and downhill turning section. After watching us go through for a few times, Glen separated us into two groups. One group went to the flat barrier to work on dismounting and mounting skills. The second group stayed at the uphill barrier – focusing on a fast dismount, fast feet on the run-up, a quick remount and then maintaining speed and fluidity in the downhill turning section. After a while, the groups switched stations – allowing everyone to practice the different skills.

I’d have to say this was a very welcoming environment. Everyone was out to learn, to test their limits a bit, and to have fun. Glen did most of the instruction, but other experienced racers and technical riders also helped out with advice and suggestions. I’d say that everyone learned something and left with a smile.

Marc and I followed up this training session with our morning ‘cross ride at Mooney’s with Steve. Another excellent session. Some follow the leader – always challenging – maintaining speed (i.e. keeping up with the boys), making the turns, and pushing my fear limits. Then it was onto drills. The grid on a side of a hill combined with some tight turns around trees and we were set. Another good morning on the ‘cross bike.

This weekend holds some solid training on the road bike followed up with some skills work. I really like to get out on my ‘cross bike as much as possible. These aren’t always hard and fast sessions. Rather they are a chance for me to practice the basics and to work on “key” ‘cross skills.

Well, I’m out of here. The day job beckons. Lots on the go these days. We are looking into flights for our trip to Belgium. If you’re thinking of heading over and need a place to stay, drop me an email.

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.

Made the trek down to Northfield, Mass. this past weekend for the annual Cycle-Smart Cyclo-Cross Camp. This was our (Marc and me) third time at the camp and it did not disappoint.

We got a bit of a late start but made it to Northfield in time to squeeze in a little ride to get the 6.5 hours of driving out of our legs. The campus was hopping with people arriving, unpacking bikes, lugging in bags and getting settled.

Friday night was a pretty easy night of supper and getting to know everyone. There were 25 participants this year – so definitely a good crew of people. The skill level and age covered a wide-range with some people completely new to ‘cross and with campers as young as 10 years old. With three seasoned instructors we were in capable hands. After the round of introductions, many of us hit the hay after a long day of travel.

Saturday morning came all too quickly. The morning was all about getting back to the basics. We worked on mounts and dismounts. This was done at all different speeds and with integrating a number of different techniques. I’ve written this before, but it definitely does a make a difference when the skill is slowed down. We broke up into skill-based groups and moved on to barriers (advanced group) or stayed with the earlier drills. Things definitely change when you are faced with a couple of barriers!

After lunch we hit the various “sections” that were set up. Uphill barriers – where we worked on shouldering the bike and maintaining foot speed. A sweeping off-camber section where we worked on choosing a fast line and weighting the bike. Then onto the downhill u-bend – this proved to be the trickiest section of the day. Adam emphasized that the “shortest line is not necessarily the fastest line”. We also spent some time on one of my favorites – bunny hopping – one day I’ll get it!

After supper we met down at the library for a presentation about training for cyclo-cross. This was an informative hour that helped emphasize the differentiators between ‘cross and road racing.

Sunday was all about race preparation. We spent time learning how to evaluate a course during warm-up. Then after lunch it was “race” time. We did a number of little races, culminating with a madison. Lots of good fun and spirit.

I think everyone left the camp with some new skills and some drills to take home for extra practice. Definitely an action packed weekend with lots of excellent time on the ‘cross bike. Not to be overlooked is the tremendous support from the Petar Tomich, the Mavic mechanic. He helped me out numerous times as I had a number of crashes and mechanicals.

All in all another excellent camp experience. I thoroughly enjoy the time spent meeting new people, hooking up with my coach Steve and the other Cycle-Smart coaches, and getting to hang out with friends I’ve made over the years racing ‘cross. Today I’m still a little sore and I have some crazy bruises – but this to me is a sign of hardwork and limits pushed.

Thanks to Sheri Jay we have a report on the cyclo-cross clinic she attended this past weekend in Ottawa. Thanks Sheri for the clinic report!

I enjoyed a weekend cross clinic under the instruction of Greg Reain and have to say I learned a lot. So much so that I hope he does a refresher course in a few weeks as I am worried I may forget some of it. Every one who attended was a newbie to ‘cross other than myself and one other person who had started last year.

The Friday night session was a classroom setting where Ian Fraser and Greg Reain went over equipment, training methodology and a bit of strategy. I learned my first big nugget of information here which in itself made the whole weekend worthwhile. Greg indicated you should pre-ride the course and break it up into segments where you can go hard and then rest a bit. Last year I always pre-rode but thought the reason was to warm up. I would then go as hard as I could until I blew up so this little piece of info is a gem.

Saturday and Sunday was hands on and I relearned to dismount the right way as well as sand riding, shouldering the bike, off camber riding, barriers etc. The shouldering of the bike was hard to master but in the end I got it. The sand riding was a blast. Greg told us to steer with our upper bodies which none of us did until we watched him demonstrate again once there were lots of ruts and you could see how he very obviously leaned to one side to steer the bike. We finished off the weekend by riding up the crazy steep hill at Mooney’s Bay which was my suggestion and once I was half way up I wondered why I would request something like that. All in all I would say the clinic was a success and Greg was an excellent teacher.

This week Glen Rendall’s Wednesday night clinic begins which I will be attending in hopes of learning as much as possible and thus being as smooth as possible for this ‘cross season.

Here is the latest scoop on the latest Ottawa ‘Cross action….

Ride with Rendall will be hosting some ‘cross events that you don’t want to miss out on:

– FREE cyclo-cross clinics Wednesdays until the clocks change (then the times and locations might change) starting September 10th at Britannia Beach at 5.30. For more details check out the Ride with Rendall web site.

– cyclo-cross “immersion” clinic September 19-22 . This will be a 4 day clinic (schedule to be announced) for those wanting to get some extra instructions. Fees for RWR members will be $60, non-RWR members will be $75, Under-17 riders are free. To register, please email Glen.

I’d say these are some events not to be missed. I’ll be out at the ‘cross clinics on Wednesday night for sure. Unfortunately I have a wedding and can’t make it to the ‘cross clinic. But I’m pretty sure that you’re free that weekend. It should be noted that Glen is a very experienced ‘cross racer and did spend some time in Switzerland last year learning from of the leaders in cyclo-cross coaching.

I’ll see you out there next Wednesday. And it would be great if someone would write a report about the ‘cross clinic – we’ll post it up here on the site.

Thanks to Ride with Rendall for organizing these events. Grass roots is where its at.