Cyclocross

Fine weather and a fast course welcomed star-studded fields to Napa Valley College for the final round of the Redline Cup of Cyclo-cross, on Sunday December 8, as series leaders Todd Wells and Gina Hall arrived to successfully defend their leads in the West coast series. With the national championships just a week away in nearby Yountville, the Redline Cup finals had dual implications: not only were the daily prizes and series win on the line, but the all-important “natz” starting positions and Worlds' team points also weighed heavily on racers’ minds. Riders battled on a fast course under

Five inches of snow in Southern New Hampshire did little to slow the action for the final round of the 2002 Verge New England Championship Cyclo-Cross Series in Merrimack, where Mongoose-Hyundai’s Marc Gullickson wrapped up the series title with a convincing win. U.S. 40+ Champion Jodi Groesbeck scored her first win in a women’s series that has been dominated by Seven’s Mary McConneloug, who had already earned the series title, despite her absence on Sunday. Heavy TrafficCalling the Verge Series a priority, Gullickson flew to New England for the final time this year from his Boulder,

Thomas Frischknecht still has significant ties to the San Francisco Bay Area after a long career sponsored by Tom Ritchey and a quick visit to the Bay Area for the Coyote Point Cyclo-cross in San Mateo offered Frischknecht an opportunity to cross swords with some of the best homegrown talent. National Champion Todd Wells was on the start line, Saturn’s Tim Johnson, the Northern California Clif Bar team of Jackson Stewart and Andy Jaques-Maynes, Andy’s twin Ben and Justin Robinson the the Spokesmen/Bullion squad, and northwest powers from Kona/Kenwood Barry Wicks, Bart Bowen and Eric Tonkin

It is said that, when the cat is away, the mice will play, and that was, in a sense, almost literally the case Sunday at the Microsoft Seattle Metro Cyclo-cross Series in North Seatac, Wash. With Jonny “The Cat” Sundt, along with a handful of other top cyclo-cross racers, out of town for the Redline Cup in Salt Lake City, Steve Crosier (Redline) and Christi Berg (Bicycle Centre) took convincing wins over what was left of the local talent pool. It was the sixth round of the Metro Series, this round sponsored by Gregg’s Greenlake, with a course that was equal parts technical and power.

Spaarselect’s Bart Wellens won the opening round of the UCI World Cup for cyclo-cross in Frankfurt on Sunday. Wellens, who won last week’s third round of the Superprestige series, finished 13 seconds ahead of world champion Mario de Clerq and defending World Cup champion Sven Nijs. Dutchman Richard Groenendaal finished fourth, again missing the podium on the heels of a Belgian sweep. The four men remained close throughout the opening portion of the race, with Wellens and Nijs trading the lead. With two laps remaining, Wellens made a decisive attack, building a 10-second gap within 500

The UCI's five-race World Cup of cyclo-cross kicks off this Sundaywith the Grand Prix of Frankfurt. Earlier this year, we had a chance tospeak with the series’s technical director Adri Van der Poel about whathe has in mind for this season, for the future and for the sport in general.When he took over his current job two years ago, Van der Poel said he wasready to make changes: changes in course design, changes in the scheduleand, “hopefully, some changes in attitude.” With more than 20 years of mud-slogging and barrier-hopping behind him,the Dutch superstar brought a rider’s perspective to

Belgian Bart Wellens (Spaar-Select) easily won the third round of the Superprestige cyclo-cross series in northern Belgian city of Gavere on Sunday. Wellens managed to escape early in the race and maintained a healthy one-minute lead throughout the hour-long ‘cross race. Wellens finished 1:22 ahead of world champion Mario de Clerq and well ahead of fellow Belgians Peter van Santvliet and Sven Nijs. Indeed, Belgians swept the top five spots on Sunday, leaving Dutchman Richard Groenendaal, who finished in sixth place along side Belgian Erwin Vervecken, as the day’s top “non-Belgian”

Todd Wells’ Saturday at the Sportsbook.com Cross in Lancaster, Pennsylvania started and ended with a bang. For starters, the Mongoose-Hyundai rider was rear-ended just 20 feet from the race site. The steep downhill section, just after an intersection, led into a 90-degree left turn into Manor Township Park. As Wells joined the line of traffic waiting to make turn into the parking lot, an unnamed local driver crested the hilltop intersection at speed, first smashing into Wells’ mother, who was driving behind him, and who then slammed into Wells’ rented mini-van. Fortunately, Wells handily

There were a lot of new faces on the podium for the 2002 Canadian National Cyclo-cross Championships, in St-Augustin, Quebec. Lyne Bessette(CyclocrossWorld) and Roddi Lega (Alberta) won the Canadian titles, in the face of constant winds that pushed the windchill to a numbing -15C. The 2002 Nationals were held on the grounds of Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy. St-Augustin is on the outskirts of Quebec City, home to Louis Garneau Inc., the cycle clothing manufacturer who was the title sponsor of this year's national championships. While the terrain is mostly flat, the organizers were able to put

For the first time in seven years, U.S. cyclo-crossers will not havea national SuperCup series to target. Whether it was the original eight-racecontest in 1996 held under the auspices of USA Cycling, or the abbreviatedthree-race, east-of-the-Rockies schedule run last year by the Kiron Group,the SuperCup has been the only game in town when it came to a nationalseries.And now, for lack of sponsorship, it’s gone.But don’t fret, fans and racers. With a whopping 18 UCI races scheduledin the United States, there promises to be as much high level racing asever. And beyond that, a sport that once was

Cyclo-cross season is officially underway in the state of Washington, where local pros Jonny Sundt (K2) and Dale Knapp (Kona) went toe-to-toe over the weekend in two races held in the span of less than 24 hours.

Cyclo-cross ordinarily isn’t in the headlines during May – but USA Cycling has just submitted 18 ’cross races, twice as many as last season, to the UCI for its 2002 International Cyclo-cross Calendar. Top-shelf racing will be on tap from coast to coast this year, with the inaugural Redline Cup series in Washington state, Salt Lake City and Napa, California; the Monkey Hill Cyclo-cross in Wilmington, Delaware; and other races in New Hampshire, Oregon, Maine, Colorado, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Ohio. “The growth of the schedule is testament to the cooperation

Left out of the SuperCup cyclo-cross series for the past two years, the West Coast is striking out on its own for 2002 with the three-race Redline Cup of Cyclo-cross series, according to Redline’s Tim Rutledge. The inaugural series of UCI-approved Category 3 races begins October 20 in Tacoma, Washington, the day after a UCI Cat. 3 event scheduled in Portland, Oregon. It continues November 23 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and concludes December 8 in Napa, California, where Rick Sutton and GaleForce Sports Marketing — who promoted the 1999 U.S. national championships at the Presidio in San

Belgians might be passionate about cyclo-cross, but Zolder proved that their love of the sport doesn’t keep them mired in tradition. While ’cross usually conjures up visions of slop-covered racers sliding through mud and hurdling obstacles with almost ballet-like grace, this year’s world-championship course left the barriers, the log-strewn run-ups and the mud for the history books. Instead, with dry weather, no hurdles and temperatures in the 60s, the emphasis was on speed and a touch of teamwork. If Dutchman Richard Groenendaal benefited from a muddy, home-field advantage the weekend

Welcome home. If cyclo-cross has a home, Belgium has to be it. This is where cyclo-cross belongs. The assembly of broadcast towers outside of the pressroom might tell you that. Or maybe it’s Belgian Television’s two hour prime time special devoted to cyclo-cross and this weekend’s world championship in Zolder. If not, maybe the 3000 fans lined up to watch practice laps on Friday might tell you that, in Belgium, cyclo-cross is more than just a pastime. And now that the world championship is home again in Belgium, the Flemish hosts are pulling out all the stops. This weekend’s world

Junior Jesse Anthony (Saturn Development) sealed up a berth on the world championship team with a win at the SuperCup finals on Sunday. Anthony battled for much of the race with Devo riders Jeremy Powers and Brent Bookwalter, Rad Racing's Aaron Bradford, and GoMart's Mike House, who had fought his way up through the pack after a first-lap crash. Those five rode together as a pack in the final lap, before Anthony attacked before the U-turn heading into the final barriers. He opened up a gap and took the win alone, leaving the chasers to battle in a four-way finish for second. Powers took the

Belgian Bart Wellens (Spaar-Select) won the eighth and final round of the Superprestige cyclo-cross series in Harnes, France, on Sunday. Wellens outsprinted Dutchman Richard Groenendaal, who had already wrapped up the overall title after round 7 in Diegem, Belgium. 30 seconds later came Belgian Sven Nijs, followed by world champion Erwin Vervecken. With his win, Wellens finished second in the overall standings, one of eight Belgians in the top 10.

She almost wins on intimidation alone. When asked how they assessed their chances at start of the women’s race at the 2001 World Cyclo-cross Championships in Tabor in the Czech Republic, most riders framed their responses in terms of how they might fare against Hanka Kupfernagel. As the sport’s first world champion, the German has come to dominate the relatively young women’s side of cyclo-cross. And, in its second year as a world championship event, Kupfernagel made sure that the biggest competition of the day would be for second place.

Cyclo-cross, an admittedly small niche in a relatively small sport, has a passionate fan base, especially in Europe. The world championships this weekend in Tabor in the Czech Republic have attracted fans from across the continent. Busloads of Belgians, trainloads of Dutch and long car caravans of Swiss have descended on this Czech city. And with them, they bring all the markings of true fans, hoping to make their affiliations quite clear. Flags are everywhere, but hats and the occassional spike-spined orange jumpsuit can do a lot to clarify who it is you're cheering for.

"It’s Kansas … only with hills." On close inspection, Dale Knapp’s description of the world cyclo-cross championship course in Tábor in the Czech Republic is fairly accurate: The world’s course, huddled beneath a collection of Soviet-era concrete apartment blocks, is quite reminiscent of the U.S. national championship loop in Overland Park, Kansas. And, if weather predictions hold true, there may be a few more reminders of that weekend back in December. Knapp and the rest of the U.S. contingent are based at Tábor’s Goldbrick Hotel, just a mile from the course and, for the most part, the

At the sixth round of the cyclo-cross World Cup series in Pontchateau, France, some eerie bunkers from WWII served as powerful memories that I won’t soon forget. Another powerful memory I'll take home from the January 21 event is one of the toughest cyclo-cross courses I’ve ever raced on. The course was set in a river basin, and someone saw to it that we were to traverse up and down the side of the river valley a number of times just to make things interesting. It worked. With a number of power climbs, fast descents, and off-camber, muddy turns, my last Euro’ race of the season was a

National cyclo-cross championships were held throughout Europe on Sunday, and with the world championships just three weeks away, national teams for the world’s in Tabor, Czech Republic, began to take shape as well. In the Netherlands, Superprestige series winner and World Cup leader Richard Groenendaal easily won the Dutch championship as he prepares for the defense of his world title. In Belgium, two-time world champion Mario De Clercq took his first Belgian title, while the favorite, Sven Nijs crashed twice and could manage only a sixth place finish. Other winners on Sunday included

Petr Dlask won the Czech Republic’s national cyclo-cross championship on Saturday in Tabor, at the same venue where the world cyclo-cross championships will take place February 3-4. Saturday’s race was contested on a 2.85km course that was frozen and covered with snow. Fifth in the World Cup standings, Dlask beat out two other members of the Author Expandia team, Jiri Pospisil and Vaclav Jezek.

Officials from USA Cycling released the final roster of riders bound for Tabor in the Czech Republic to contest the world cyclo-cross championships, February 3-4. SuperCup cyclo-cross series winners Marc Gullickson (Mongoose) and Ann Grande (Kona-Voicestream) will head the eight-rider team. Dale Knapp (Kona-Voicestream) and Rachel Lloyd (Novo-Sycip) fill out the other spots in the U.S. elite squad offered by USA Cycling. Alan Obye and Josh Anthony will race in Under-23 event, while Jeremy Powers and Aaron Bradford will represent the U.S. in the junior men's race. Notably absent from the

Belgian cyclo-crosser Sven Nijs (Rabobank) continued his late-season charge on Sunday, winning the Grand Prix of the Netherlands, round five of the six-round World Cup series. Nijs beat Czech Petr Dlask and Dutchman Richard Groenendaal to take his second World Cup win of the 2000-01 season. Nijs, Dlask and Groenendaal jumped out to the early lead in Zeddam, opening up a gap on chasers such as Erwin Vervecken, Mario De Clercq and Gerben De Knegt. But with three laps remaining, Groenendaal fell back, victim of a mechanical problem. The world champion chased back, only to crash on the

With budget concerns limiting USA Cycling's support of a national cyclo-cross team at world championships in Tabor, Czech Republic, February 3-4, the American Cyclo-cross Foundation has launched a last-minute drive to raise enough money to field an eight-person squad. USA Cycling is funding trips for five riders: one elite man, one elite woman, one under-23 man, and two juniors. The ACF is attempting to raise enough money for three additional riders, at an estimated cost of $1500 per rider. The American Cyclo-cross Foundation is a private group set up to funnel donations from

Rabobank's Sven Nijs proved Sunday's edition of the Superprestige cyclo-cross series in Diegem, Belgium, belonged to the hometown favorites. Nijs finished at the top Belgian sweep of the top five spots. Hey, maybe his teammate, Richard Groenendaal isn't invincible after all. Don't bet on it ... even after the man who has dominated the 2000-2001 cyclo-cross season finished sixth, giving the Dutchman the day's top non-Belgian spot in the seventh race in the eight-race series. While Groenendaal had a tougher time than usual -- finishing in a group, 1:20 behind Nijs -- he remains in charge of

Editor's note: He's back. There, not here, that is. American cyclo-cross racer Alex Candelario returned to Belgium last week to continue his season of 'cross racing where it matters. Candelario started his season in Europe, then came home to contest the U.S. national championships in December (where he finished 10th) and is now back in Belgium for the remainder of the season. He checked in on Tuesday with this latest account of the Belgian 'cross chronicles. On Christmas day, I left the comforts of family and the loved one to venture back to the snowy fields of Belgium.