Five questions with three-time US ‘cross champ Stephen Hyde
Hyde talks about new bikes, racing while jet-lagged, and more.
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Stephen Hyde comes to the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Waterloo, Wisconsin, at the Trek Bicycles world headquarters as a three-time U.S. national champion, from 2017 – 2019.
Wearing the colors of the Steve Tilford Racing Foundation, Hyde is one of the most experienced American racers in an international field that includes Toon Aerts, Eli Iserbyt, Lars van der Haar, and other experienced Dutch and Belgian ‘cross racers, as well as a few dozen up-and-coming Americans.
Hyde Raced the Trek CX Cup on Friday evening, finishing sixth, and has plans to improve on this result in Sunday’s premier UCI World Cup event.
We caught up with Hyde as he was doing his own wrenching, moving components from his old Specialized Crux cyclocross bike to the new Specialized Crux which launched just recently.
VeloNews: You do your own wrenching?
Stephen Hyde: yeah, because it’s last minute, and I need to get out on the course to do it. Yeah, so it’s the new bikes that we have the new Crux that just came out. We’re just trying to get them dialed in and we have the old ones there and we just have had these in the box.
VN: How does the new Crux compare with the previous generation?
SH: So far so good. I mean it’s really predictable and good, but I really haven’t had that much time on them.
VN: How are you feeling after racing the other evening?
SH: Good. I had kind of a rough one [Friday] but hopefully, some of this stuff [new bikes, -ed] changes that.
VN: What do you think about the course, here?
SH: I’m excited the course seems really good. It’s gonna be fast, I mean if it’s all like dry like, you know, it’s dried out a lot like it is right now. It’s got a lot of elevation, as opposed to [Friday’s] race because they took a lot of it out [the course is slightly different between Friday and Sunday’s races, -ed]. So, betting that, you know, hopefully, that’s a little better for me.
VN: Do you think Americans have an advantage over some of those who just arrived and are jet-lagged?
SH: It doesn’t really seem to matter very much you know. In general, I think the U.S. level — we struggle so much at the European World Cups. So if we’re jet-lagged it’s like that much harder. It doesn’t seem to really matter for the Euros coming here. They’re like, whatever, however many percent better at any point. So we’ll see.