Cyclocross veteran Adam Myerson shares the essential race-day strategies—covering equipment, course inspection, warm-up, nutrition, and tactics—that can make or break your season.
Episode Transcript
Chris Case
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of fast talk. Your source for the science of endurance performance. I’m your host, Chris case here with Trevor Connor, it’s that time of year again, my favorite time of year again, cyclocross season is upon us, and in today’s episode, we want to zoom in on the nuances of race day cyclocross involves a few elements that set it apart from other cycling disciplines, things like course inspection, things like the field sprint being at the start of the race rather than at the finish. Then, of course, there’s the weather, which can play a significant role in race day prep. So today, we will take a close look at everything from bike prep to nutritional timing, from the balance of course, inspection and race warm up to some of the myths of cyclocross. And we’re excited to discuss all of this with Adam Meyerson, someone with more than 1000 races under his belt in a racing career that has stretched from the age of 15 to his current age of 53 Adam has been a part of the New England cyclocross scene for decades, starting as the organizer of the Northampton event when he was 19. His resume includes racing as a junior, as an amateur Pro, a master. He’s also had stints as a pro team captain and a manager, a race organizer, of course, a local association founder, a UCI and USA Cycling committee member, and the list goes on. He’s also been a coach for the past 25 years, and is the founder of cycle smart. We’ll also hear from Grant holicky, a frequent guest on fast talk, and also a long time cyclocross coach who’s worked with several national champions. He’s also the cyclocross coordinator for team USA and the former manager of several professional cyclocross teams. So let’s get ready for race day, and let’s make you fast Well, Adam, it’s a pleasure to have you on fast talk. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Guys, absolutely as I was sort of writing notes and gathering info for this episode, I went to crossresults.com to see just how many races you’ve done in your life. It tabulates 459 I sent that number to you, and you’re like, yeah, it’s probably about three times more than that. So just give us a second of your time explaining how long you’ve lived this sport.
Adam Meyerson
Yeah, right. Well, I started in the late 80s as a teenager under the tutelage of legends like Paul Curley and Mark and Frank McCormick and Bill Sykes. Racing Cross was part of what you did racing for the Mass Bay Road Club coming up in southeastern mass in the 80s. So I went to college at UMass, and very quickly got involved there with taking over their kind of mediocre mountain bike race that they ran on campus and turned it into a cyclocross race the next year that was 1991 so that started my career as a race organizer at age 19, and that’s the Northampton cyclocross that still continues today as a UCI event. You know, it’s hard to know how many races I’ve actually done, but I took a big swing at trying to turn pro in my 20s and the 90s, and won a collegiate national cyclocross championship and went to Europe for a little bit, and eventually turned pro in my 30s and went into my early 40s. And so, yeah, it’s been a long career of sleeping in cars and living off prize money, but also finally turning pro and making a living and coaching and race organizing. And it definitely predates mobile phones. You know, never mind cross results. Biker edge that owns cross results was started by my college housemate. So even the beginning of biker edge happened in my living room. So those connections go really deep. The point is, at this point, you’re not willing to say you’ve done too many races. You’re going to continue to do racing. I am a lifer, even after retiring from racing as a pro, it’s still the thing that I like to do most. And I’m lucky that my nine, almost 10 year old son also likes bike racing and sometimes wants to do it with me. Well, he loves bike racing. He doesn’t always like bike riding. You know, those things are different, yeah, but I was able to turn the thing that I loved most into my job in one way or another, as a coach or a racer. And of course, that also turns it into work, but I’m glad to be doing this work as opposed to something
Chris Case
else excellent on the show. We’ve spoken with Katie Compton, Steven Hyde, Alan noble on various aspects of cyclocross. Today we really want to focus on race day. Let’s start with the big question, why is race day, specifically for cyclocross such an important aspect of performance? What makes it different? I want to set the table with that question. Why? We want to talk about all these little nuances, all those small things that add up to big differences.
Adam Meyerson
So it’s different compared to, let’s say, a road event of any kind, or even mountain bike racing, to a degree in that because you have a short course that is full of features, you not only have to be physiologically warmed up, you have to have that course dialed. You have to have your choices made, ideally in advance. About what you’re going to do in each turn at every situation, and how is that going to change during the race? So course inspection is a big part, a critical part, of what you do. And you actually have to have a certain amount of fitness in order to do the right amount of course inspection on top of the race preparation you have to do. And I do think that’s unique. It only takes 15 minutes to warm up for a criterium, really, and you can see the course and have most of the turns and potholes memorized in that time. And that’s not a sufficient amount of time to be fully prepared for a cyclocross course.
Chris Case
When you’re thinking about race day, does it start the day before? Does it start a few days before? When do you start preparing, in a sense, for all the necessary things and thought processes that go into race day. Yeah,
Adam Meyerson
in July sometime, actually. So every thread you pull on here can get pulled and pulled. But I know it sounds funny, but literally in July. So in July, you have to start making sure your equipment is ready if you haven’t by then, and that can be as simple as pumping up your tires, or it could mean peeling and gluing tubulars. You know, it’s such a wide scale of preparedness, but making sure your equipment is ready has to happen in advance, but then short term, or more acute sense, at the very least, that week, there’s a routine that you’re going through to make sure that your equipment is ready for the weekend, and then a few things that you’re doing the day before. In some cases, you may live close to an event and be able to go pre ride the course the day before, or you may have traveled to an event. If you’re traveling to a big event, you’re likely there on Friday, and you may even get to pre ride the course as part of your opening up workout on Friday before your race is on Saturday and Sunday. So that preparedness goes out months in advance, or right up until, I would say, the day before as well. You
Trevor Connor
know the thing I wanted to bring up, because I definitely hope we dive into the gear. We did an episode with Neil Henderson, Episode 213 on basic race prep, for anybody who’s interested. But what I found interesting about preparing for this episode with you is how much more detail goes into being ready for a cyclocross race. Meaning, yeah, you can talk about a road race and what are the right wheels and what’s the right tire, but the fact of the matter is, you can throw on whatever you know, as long as they’re decent race wheels, thrown whatever wheels go to a race. And it might not be optimal, but you can still race a good race, where I still remember I did a National Cup cyclocross race basically on a bet, and I’m standing on the start line, and this guy’s going around measuring the tire width, comes to my bike, measures my tire width, and just walks away laughing, okay, and it was two minutes into the race where I discovered why, because you can talk about cyclocross racing generically, but if you’re doing a muddy, wet cyclocross race versus a very dry, grassy race, it’s fundamentally different. And Adam, please talk to this. You need completely different gear,
Adam Meyerson
yeah. And I think when we talk about this, I’m always very mindful of how expensive bike racing is and how inaccessible that sometimes makes it and so you’re 100% right that you can ride your road bike on training wheels to the local criterium and race on that and be mostly fine. You know, you certainly can participate successfully that way. And cyclocross can be that way too. It’s okay to run what you run, and no one should be afraid of the sport because they don’t have three bikes and six sets of wheels, especially these days, if you’ve got a gravel bike and you’ve never done cyclocross before, you’ve got a cyclocross bike, like, don’t worry about it, show up with that bike and participate. The same way when mountain biking first had its boom in the 90s, that all the mountain bikers started showing up to cyclocross, and that was part of the boom that we had in cyclocross, was the crossover from mountain bike racing. On the other hand, if funds are less limited, and you can have all of the equipment that you like, or even a couple of different sets of wheels that have different treads. Yeah, you want to have different treads for different conditions. And we can get into detail about that. There are ideal treads and ideal widths. There are rules that you have to follow as well, and the rules are different depending on the level that you’re racing at. If you’re in UCI restricted races, you’re limited to 33 millimeter wide tires, and the preference there is still tubular tires. If you’re racing, just USA Cycling races, other categories and even at Nationals, you’re allowed to ride up to 38 millimeter wide tires. So it’s important to know the rules and pay attention to them, because that does impact your equipment
Trevor Connor
choice as well. So let’s talk to any listener who wants to try cyclocross, but they’re not going to go and buy the three sets of wheels and the multiple sets of tires. What would be your recommendation if they’re going to have one set of wheels, what set of tires? What should they get that will allow them to do most cross races and enjoy it? Well, I’ll
Adam Meyerson
reiterate again, if you’ve got a gravel bike, you’ve got a bike you can use in a cyclocross race, and you’re likely to have tires that are wider than they need to be, or wider than are ideal for a cyclocross though, there’s a lot of conversation these days about wide tires for all different events cyclocross, as part of the characteristic of the sport is about skinny. Tires, almost inappropriately skinny tires. And so if a course is designed well, it should actually still be an advantage to be on a tire that’s a 33 or 35 millimeter tire. If it’s faster on wider tires, then I would argue that it was an inappropriately designed cyclocross course. But also in local races, we’re happy to have races, and we’re not going to complain too much, like we used to in the old days about jungle cross or courses that are better suited for mountain bike racing. So if you want to have an ideal cross setup, a cycle cross bike, compared to, say, a road bike or especially a gravel bike, it’ll generally have a higher bottom bracket, so six or six and a half centimeters of bottom bracket drop, so there’s more pedaling clearance there. You know, gravel bike will have seven or seven and a half centimeters of bottom bracket drop. A road bike usually has seven. So that’s probably the biggest difference in geometry these days, between a pure, true cyclocross bike and a gravel bike, for instance. But for ideal tire tread, the best example I could give you would be like a challenge Griffo. That’s like the quintessential all conditions, middle of the road, cyclocross tire, and it’s an arrow tread, a chevron or arrow tread, where it’s a round tire, round profile, so that when you lean it over, it’s very predictable. There’s not an edge that you get to, that you have to push hard on to get the bike to lean over. It corners consistent way. It leans over in a consistent way, and it’s pretty consistent tread, wide knobs, flat knobs, some space in between them, and it’ll work in all conditions. It might not be ideal in all conditions, but if you only had one tire, that would be the one that you would go for.
Chris Case
And I think this gets into the regional aspect of cyclocross, if you’re racing in a place like California, where you 99% chance that every race is going to be dry and dusty, then the grief, oh, might not be the best choice. You might go with file tread or something. Whereas, if you live in the Pacific Northwest and almost every race is going to be muddy, you might go with a Lemus or something. If we’re sticking with the challenge brand of tires, yeah, and I think
Adam Meyerson
it’s great to stick with challenge, because they have so many treads that we can talk about every tread type in that line. And challenge is probably the brand that offers the most options there. I would only mildly disagree with you and say that what’s great about the Grippo is it will still work in all of those conditions. It might not be the best. You’re absolutely right. I spend even in New England, I probably spend half the season on the challenge Dune, which is a file tread that has a medium side knob right that I think corners very predictably. We might be getting in the weeds a little bit here, but you’re absolutely right. Like regional differences, regional conditions absolutely matter, and might determine what your default one tread is if I was in a place that was slightly wetter, like the Northwest, and I only had one tread to pick, I’d probably pick the flandrian. It’s a fast mud tire, so it’s a little more aggressive than the Griffo. The knobs are a little far apart, but it’s not as aggressive as a Limas, which I consider a true mud tire when the mud is bottomless, when there’s no bottom to the mud. You want a lioness. If the mud has a bottom, if there’s something to grab onto under there, then something like a flandren. Call it a fast mud tire, or a Wet Tire. This is where, if you have resources, you know, I race on four different treads. I roll four treads for the season, and have enough wheels to have two sets of every tread. And I run a file tread. I like the dune. I run the Griffo as my mid tread. I run the flandren as my fast mud tire, and I run the Lima says, My deep mud tire. And I have two sets of tubulars in each one of those treads. And then I have a set of training wheels that I use the chicane. They’re tubeless, and I ride the chicane in training. We love training on file treads. That’s a tip I’ll give everybody if you want to get better at cross train on file treads. Learn how to drive your bike without the tread, so that when you do put the ideal tread on, it’ll really do what you want it to.
Chris Case
Now let’s hear Grant’s thoughts on the individual nature of equipment, choice and race prep.
Grant Holicky
I think what is really important about your equipment and your race prep is that they become very individualized your race prep is your race prep. I watch so many athletes get caught up in what that person’s doing, or what that person’s doing, or trying to replicate this. If you’ve always gone and ripped your warm up on the road, great, rip your warm up on the road, you don’t have to get on a trainer. And I’ve gone through phases with that for myself personally, and I think it’s true in terms of equipment, too. A lot of guys now in the non UCI races for the Masters riders are able to move to these 36 mil tubeless or tubular tires. They get a wider tire. I raced on those one race last year, and I felt awful, because they react very differently. There’s a lot more volume in the tire. They almost fold a little easier. You gotta run them at different pressures. So really staying committed to your equipment and what you’re prepared to do, whether that’s the quote, unquote right thing or wrong thing, I will always use this example, Reno Nash. Nationals, I had raced an entire season on a mud front and an intermediate rear, every condition, every race, no matter what I did full on mud races and that I did full on sand races and that I did everything on that. And I got to Nationals, and one of my teammates was like, that’s crazy. You’re nuts. I have an extra set of intermediates just use mine, and I raced on them, and I rolled the tire with two laps to go. I was sitting in fourth place because they weren’t mine, and I didn’t know what had been done or when they’d be re glued. So stay committed to your routine, your prep. What you know works if you want to change that, change it between seasons and get prepared for it and try it out.
Chris Case
All right, Adam, let’s turn our attention back to race day, and let’s actually start the day before. What’s going in the race bag? What are you packing? Both bike clothing, all the gear that you need for every race that you do? And then, of course, when it’s maybe wet and sloppy or snowy and icy out. We’ll take that as a second step of what goes in that bag or that
Adam Meyerson
day. Well, when you’re packing your gear, hardest depends on your resources and what you’ve got. But I often recommend to people like bring everything always. So you look at the weather and you think you have a sense of things, but until you’re there, you don’t really know what you’re gonna need. And weather changes and conditions on the course change from your first warm up to when your race happens. And a tread you might think you can ride in your warm up in the morning, it might turn out to be inappropriate. Five minutes of rain can change what you’re gonna need in the race. So bring it all if you can. Sometimes, if you’re doing local races and you wanna keep things a little easy and you feel really confident of the weather, yeah, maybe you leave the Limas at home on a weekend where you know it’s gonna be 80 and sunny and there’s absolutely no time when you’re gonna need a tread like that. So bring all the bikes, bring all the treads. Be careful about trying to make your life easier and leaving something at home that you’re gonna regret and maybe you need later. It’s good to have a packing list. And you should more or less bring the same things for every race, and then you can make some decisions based on what you really feel confident about for whether that perhaps you can leave behind. But ideally, I think this is important that a lot of newer cross riders might not consider you don’t want to just have gear to race in. You want to have gear to warm up in and change into your race kit for the race, so a jersey, in shorts, like anything that you’re going to need to warm up in. You want to change out of those clothes after your warm up and into the clothing that you’re going to race for. And then you’re also going to need gear to put over your race gear, depending on the time of year it is to stay warm before the start. So short finger gloves, long finger gloves, tights, leg warmers, jackets, hats for under your helmet, rain gear, warm up pants. A real great cross specific item is the zip off warm up pants that you can wear to the start line. Those are so critical for staying warm right up until you know the last couple minutes before the start, before you peel all your clothes off, those make a big difference. You really need to be warm when the race starts, not cold on the start line. So, yeah, everything. Bring everything
Chris Case
people used to love, and maybe they still do in New England. But what are your thoughts on embrocation, is it? I know Trevor has thoughts. Generally, I would say it doesn’t do anything, but people think it does, and it’s part of the lore of cyclocross. But what are your thoughts? Adam, yeah,
Adam Meyerson
well, I think that’s right. What it does is it makes you feel warm. That doesn’t mean it makes you warm. And so for that reason, it is actually useful, and here’s why. So if it’s wet, and I’m sure you’ll all agree with this as well, it’s nothing ideal about racing in wet leg warmers, right? You know, if it’s cold and it’s raining and you’ve got leg warmers on once they’re wet, you’re riding around in refrigerators on your legs. You’re just carrying that water around. And so this is where riding in shorts or with embrocation or even just Vaseline sometimes is better than racing in wet leg warmers. If we understand how embracation works, you’re basically rubbing hot sauce on your legs and encouraging blood flow to your skin. Well, that’s probably making you colder while making you feel warm. It is taking blood flow away from other parts of your body and towards the surface of your skin, and probably causing you to dissipate heat that you’d really like to hold on to. What it allows you to do is stand on the start line in shorts for the five minutes that you need to before the whistle gets blown. Once the race begins, you’re making 100% effort in a cyclocross race and generating enough heat to stay warm. But if you get cold or feel cold on the start line, you sometimes can’t get out of that. So these days, I think the trend is away from embrocation, particularly in dry conditions. Leg warmers are great light leg warmers are easy to race in. So I think you see riders at every level, especially, I think the big change of the pros, they’re racing in leg warmers in dry conditions, if it’s raining, if it’s wet, that’s when it’s very useful to switch to embrocation. It’s basically rub on leg warmers, right? You. Yeah, that’s a good way of looking at Yes, you don’t want to carry those wet leg warmers around with you in the race. So that’s where embrocation can be useful, and that’s my approach personally.
Trevor Connor
No, Adam, I’m glad you mentioned that, because that’s exactly what the research said. Is the one issue with embrocation is it fools your body into thinking that you’re hot, and so you’ll get blood flow to the surface. And if it’s a cold day and your body’s trying to save heat, it actually is counterproductive, because it’ll move that blood to the surface and you’ll lose heat. But if you’re in a race going really hard, that’s not an
Adam Meyerson
issue. Yeah, exactly, right. So those couple minutes when you peel your warm up pants off before the whistle blows, that’s when the emrication is really doing its job for you, so that you can just tolerate that for a second until the race starts.
Trevor Connor
But if it’s a wet day and you’re using embracation for the first time, be ready for the surprise.
Chris Case
Yes, and don’t put your fingers to your eyes afterwards. Well,
Adam Meyerson
I recommend keeping latex gloves in your bag along with your embercation. If you’re putting embracation in your bag, you should have a little ziploc bag full of latex gloves to put your embercation on as well. X Pro tip for you there,
Trevor Connor
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Chris Case
Let’s turn our attention to this warm up inspection. Somewhat complicated depends on your level conversation. I know you’ve written about this at length. You’ve probably had this conversation a lot. Adam, can you give us a sense of why it’s a little more complicated?
Adam Meyerson
Yeah, I think if we want to use the two extremes of a beginner cyclocross racer who is most likely going to be the first race of the day in the morning, versus an elite cyclocrosser Who is going to be the last race of the day in the afternoon, the considerations there are so different, one because the amount of access you have to the course, to inspect the course is going to be different, but also the weather is going to be different. It’s an ironic fact of cyclocross that beginners get the most challenging course conditions of the day, no matter what the weather is, usually unless a storm rolls in, right? Yeah, if you have overnight lows around freezing and a course that frosts over and gets dewy or has to thaw. The Beginners often get treacherous conditions, and then the elites get a super highway in the afternoon. That happens all the time in New England, is a common challenge, but if you’re an elite racer, or you’re in the afternoon wave of an event, then you have, hopefully, access to course inspection time and can get to the event early enough to utilize the opportunities to get on the course that are available to you. And I think this is also very much impacted on the region that you live in and the traditions of your local scene, and organize your preferences. What is traditional in New England that other regions have adopted, but isn’t universal everywhere, is we always have a certain amount of time between each race. There’s a comfortable cushion, 15 minutes of a window between when one race is supposed to end and the next one is supposed to start when the winner crosses the finish line. The course becomes open behind the last racer on the course. So it’s sort of a moving, rolling enclosure, open course window. And this is a great tradition. It gets enforced through peer pressure and osmosis. Really, you learn it when you come into the sport, but it lets everybody get a lap in without interfering with the racers who were still on the course finishing their race. You keep a safe distance. And I would encourage organizers in other regions to model that if they’re not familiar with it. But then we also schedule periodic 15 minute open windows throughout the day where riders can get on the course and at least get one, if not two, laps in. So if you’re in an afternoon race, and you can take advantage of those windows, you want to ideally get to the race three or even four hours before your start, so that you can have multiple sessions where you might do three warm up sessions, where one is one lap to just inspect the course at a warm up pace. You walk the run ups. You’re just looking. It’s a lap to look and see what’s out there. And then a race will start, and you have, you know, a 45 minute or hour break. And then for your next warm up session, you might take some laps at speed where you’re actually doing what you might consider a physiological warm up, the warm up of the warm up, not just the course inspection, but in this window, you’re also doing course inspection. You are trying to see the lines that you thought you might take. How do they work if you’re actually riding at closer to race pace? Do you need to rewrite anything? Do you need to have sort of multiple choices for a line based on the traffic that you might be in? The line that you pick for yourself when you have the whole. Force to yourself might not be available to you on the first lap or on any lap if you’re in traffic during the race, so you have to have options as well. You can’t be married to a single line choice. And then your third warm up session would be the final one in the last 30 minutes before the race, where you’ve got your race kit on and you’re just rolling around waiting to go to the start line, maybe doing a couple sprints to just put the finishing touches on your warm up before you go to the start line. So you have to have, you know, an afternoon race and access to the course to be able to do that. And that’s not necessarily reasonable. If your race is at 8am or 9am where you’re not trying to get up at three in the morning to get to the race four hours before the start to do three warm up sessions. If you’re a race is first or second in the morning. The one advantage you have is you do have open course time. If you’re the first race of the day, you can get on the course before your race and have sort of unlimited access to the course. And that might mean, or should mean, you already have your race kit on under your warm up stuff. You don’t have time to warm up and change and go back out there, but it lets you compress that whole thing where you’re doing your physiological warm up, along with your course inspection at the same time going back to the car, giving yourself at least 15 minutes to get to the start line before staging. You know, if you’re in a beginner race, and there’s 150 people in your race, it takes a lot longer than 15 minutes to stage. So that’s something else you have to be prepared for at a UCI cyclocross event, the beginner fields are gigantic. So even though it’s not a UCI event for the beginners, it may have 100 or 150 people in the field, and you have to be prepared for that as well. If
Chris Case
you’re in that afternoon wave and you do have the opportunity to jump on the course and inspect it. In Colorado, it’s very much like New England. A lot of people will gather at the finish line. They’ll wait for that last rider to cross the line. The course is then deemed open. Oftentimes, there’ll be like, a green flag or red flag system. It’ll put the green flag up, and then a whole bunch of people jump on the course. My preference. And maybe this is a tip I’d like to hear what you think Adam, I don’t go immediately, because then you’re a putting some pressure on that last rider, because people tend to, like, want to do the course a little bit faster than that person is going. They’re at the end of their race, you know, and you’re fresh and excited, and then you’re kind of caught in traffic, and you don’t really have a chance to ride things as well as you might otherwise. So I usually wait a little bit. It’s only takes 30 seconds or a minute for that first group of people that are so excited to get on course, let them do their thing, and then you go on and you have a little bit more freedom to inspect repeat stuff, check out, lines, all of that.
Adam Meyerson
Yeah, that’s right. And I think there’s a couple aspects to consider there. And if you’re only gonna get one lap in, and you know you only have time for one lap, then you’re absolutely right. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but as you said, you don’t have to be the first one onto the course. You want to be able to ride uninterrupted and perhaps ride at speed, or be able to make an effort for the whole time. And if you’re the first one on the course, you will be riding at the pace of the last Finisher of the previous race. That pace is fine if your first lap is meant to simply be a course inspection. So you can change when you get on the course based on what your goals are. I also think it’s important to say that from an etiquette standpoint, everyone has to work together to enforce the respect for the last racer on the course. This is a critical part of why this works. So if you find yourself on the course early and limited by the last rider on the course, take it upon yourself to call people out to help enforce the respect for the people that are finishing, and riders sometimes might not know. They might blow by you, not realizing the rider in front of you is the last finisher on the course, and it’s important for everybody to communicate with each other and contribute to make sure that this system works. It’s a self policing system. So get on the course first. If you’re only going to do an inspection pace, or, you know, you’re going to get two laps where your first one can be an inspection pace, and then you can rip the second lap if you have time for that, if you only have time for one, your advice is great. Let everybody else get on first. Give it a second, because you just want to take advantage. Of the time that’s open. And if you want to be able to ride hard the whole time, you need a little buffer to
Trevor Connor
do that. I want to emphasize this because couple years ago, when I was doing my first cross races, I was that last rider, and I remember being in a race, and a couple guys for the next race hopped on the course and tried to do a couple efforts at pace and pass me. And it really won’t use the
Chris Case
word, but it makes you happy. Yeah, as it should. You know that shouldn’t happen.
Adam Meyerson
It’s why people don’t come back. You don’t grow the sport that way. It’s very discouraging. We could point fingers at certain parts of the sport who might be more prone to behaving in that way than others, and who are the perpetrators and who are the victims, but we all know that we have to work together to make the sport welcoming and inclusive, and that means protecting that last finisher whose race is just as important as whoever’s next or whoever was first. That’s big part of it. Let’s hear
Chris Case
from Grant again about the ways in which he balances warm ups with parenting and how the cyclocross community plays a crew. Rule on race day
Grant Holicky
in the old days, when my wife was racing and river was really young, and we even did this when race was pretty young. We did the straight handoff. I remember vividly her finishing a race in the wave directly in front of me, me handing her our child, who is, at the time, not even one, and going right to the start line without a warm up, and having a great time and having a great race. I think it’s an awareness going in that where are the priorities that day? And there may be times that you have the priorities of this is a race, and I’m gonna get a babysitter, and I’m gonna make sure that, like today, for this hour, the hour leading in the hour that I’m racing, they’re not the priority. Maybe the bike race is, and that’s okay, but a lot of the time, for me personally, they’re the priority. So I’m gonna run around with them. That’s why I love cross racing. There’s always something for them to do. Now that they’re both old enough, they’re gonna race, whether they really care about their racing or not. That’s not the point. They just love it and they’re gonna have fun. So they go race, and they go visit the free samples of what somebody’s handing out, and they go to the food truck, and they do this, and they do that. That really now is more to the point. First local race this season here, I’ll have one of my kids, the younger of the two kids, and I will probably just let the community babysit him. He’s old enough that he can pretty much take care of himself, and everybody knows him. So I can kind of show up ride on the trainer. He’ll talk my ear off for a little bit, and then I’ll go race, and he’ll talk somebody else’s year off for a little bit. But it’s cool for them to be around that sport and around that environment and just see it, whether they decide to do it or not.
Trevor Connor
All right. Well, let’s shift gears. Again, we’ve actually talked a little bit about the bike prep. You gave us a lot of great information about the types of tires you want to use for different conditions. What else do we need to know about bike prep?
Adam Meyerson
Again, I think it depends on, are you showing up with one bike and one set of wheels, or three bikes and nine sets of wheels? Do you have a mechanic? Or are you taking care of all your equipment yourself? So it’s such a varied experience based on the level that you’re at and the amount of support and equipment that you have, let’s say, if we’re starting with a beginner or lower level racer, let’s say you have one bike and one or maybe two sets of wheels. Obviously you want to make sure you’re showing up with a clean bike. And then, as part of your course inspection that we where we talked about course inspection, what are the conditions like if you’re inspecting the course on a muddy day, it’s a very different experience than if you’re inspecting the course on a dry day. So do you have to budget for cleaning your bike between course inspections or cleaning it before you go to the start? And what kind of equipment is available for you at the event? Are there hoses? If you need access to hoses. Are you bringing your own pressure washer? Which may sound like a ridiculous thing for someone driving their own small car to a race with one bike, but there are other people who are driving to the races with vans and three bikes and pressure washer in the back of the van as well. So again, that experience can be so varied you only need one bike to race cross, and it’s possible to complete any cross race on a single bike. But the nature of cross and part of the characteristic of the sport is for those who are new to the sport, there’s a pit once or twice a lap where you can exchange equipment. If you have a bike that’s so muddy it’s difficult to continue on, or you have a mechanical, you can come into the pit lane and exchange bikes for a clean bike or a working bike. If you have a flat or a mechanical, things like that. And so this is why riders come with two or three, or at the highest level of sport, sometimes four bikes at an event, to be able to change bikes once a lap, or sometimes twice a lap. The most I’ve ever changed bikes in a money race is twice a lap. And usually in a double pit, you’ll pass the pit twice a lap. So that’s the most frequent amount of times that you can change bikes? I come with three bikes still, even as a 53 year old master, it feels a little excessive these days, but I’ve been doing the sport for a long time, and I like to do it a certain way. I have two bikes that are perfectly identical with single chain ring SRAM, single chain ring setup, and I have a third bike that has two chain rings that’s identical to the other bikes in every other way, but has a power meter and two chain rings. And I consider that my training bike, but I could convert it to single if I need to, if I want three identical bikes for nationals or a championship event where I might three bikes and want them to all be perfectly identical. So you just wanna make sure they’re clean, they’re working right. Your tires are fresh, and you don’t want any surprises on race day.
Chris Case
Why don’t you go into a little bit more detail about your opinion, your pro tips on tubulars versus tubeless?
Adam Meyerson
Sure. Well, what I would say is tubeless is probably the best solution for most amateur cyclocrossers, they’ve come a long way, and the ride feel of tubeless. They are close enough that they’ve removed a lot of the disadvantage of, let’s say, clinchers. You’re not going to get a pinch flat. You have a much nicer casing, supple casings, a wide variety of treads, arguable about whether or not it’s less maintenance. It depends on how good you are at setting up your tubeless, or also how good. You are at gluing tubulars, but when you want that last bit of performance, tubulars are still the clear choice by all the top riders. And for good reason, aside from them being lighter, a tubular tire just performs in a different way than even a tubeless you’re relying on the casing of the tire so much more than you are relying just on the tread of the casing, and that contrast is even bigger if you think about a mountain bike tire, where the tread is what matters, and the casing is not as supple, so a very high thread count TPI. Casing is very soft, it flexes. And we ride at low pressures, let’s say between 20 and 25 psi. So the tire is essentially your suspension system. You want the tire to flex and bend and fold, to either maintain a bigger contact patch or to absorb irregularities, even on a micro sense, with the ground underneath you. And so for that reason, tubulars do a thing bend in a way that tubeless tires still don’t, but you do sort of have to be at a certain level to appreciate and be able to take advantage of that difference. So I race on tubulars, but I do train on tubeless I’m surprised to this day how low I can ride my tubeless tires and how much shock absorption they will give me. And really the main thing that you don’t get from is that bending, the flexing and the turns that you get with a tubular tire that keeps the tread stuck to the ground. For
Chris Case
somebody who’s coming into cyclocross, maybe they’ve done gravel racing, mountain bike racing, all of it, but they’re not familiar with riding at the low pressures that are ideal for cyclocross, and their bikes ride differently, and it can be a little bit unnerving when you go into a corner and things start to feel like they’re folding or you’re going to crash because of the tire’s behavior. Do you just work with these people to have them build up confidence by experiencing that riding courses, you know, like do a few laps at 40 psi and few laps at 35 psi, et cetera.
Adam Meyerson
Yeah, that’s right. And I think early in the season, even for an experienced crosser, especially if you’re coming from the road, it takes a little while to get comfortable with the squirm of a tubular tire and the low pressure, and even just being comfortable drifting and sliding after you’ve spent the summer trying not to slide racing criteriums, you may be a little more comfortable with drifting and sliding if you’re coming from mountain bike or gravel, but, yeah, that’s right. I think when you’re talking about tire pressure with a tubular tire, but even for a tubeless what is ideal is the lowest pressure you can ride without folding the tire to the point of completely sliding out, or bottoming out, the tire to the point of getting a pinch flat. And what that pressure is will vary for each rider based on course conditions, rider style and rider weight, even for myself, my ideal tire pressure changes based on whether or not I’m at a lighter weight, because I’m peaking for nationals, versus what I might be at the start of the season, where I’m not as worried about how much weight, five pounds of body weight, can be two PSI of pressure. It’s that sensitive. So yes, it takes practice. You should have a starting pressure that before you go out onto the course when you don’t know what’s out there that you always bump your tires up to this particular pressure, because, you know, you can inspect any course at that pressure, and then go up and down from there, based on what you’ve learned in your course inspection. For me, that’s 22 in the front and 24 in the back. Generally, in cross you’ll run two psi lower in the front than the back. There’s a lot more weight on that rear tire. And sort of get them to feel the same. You want to be one or two psi different front and rear. Sometimes you have to pick a tire pressure based on one small part of a course that you could get a flat on might determine the pressure that you have to run, even though it’s not ideal for the rest course. If you have a muddy race where you’d like to ride 18 psi, but it’s got one section of rocks and roots, or a curb hop or something like that, where you can get a flat, you have to make the decision, you know, do you ride the psi for the place that can ruin your race? Or do you ride the psi that’s ideal for the other 90% of the course?
Chris Case
Yeah, there’s so many little nuances, and this is a topic we could talk about endlessly as well,
Trevor Connor
well before we move on. So the one thing I want to ask about, because I’ve had negative experience with this. What about burping air out of your tires during a race?
Adam Meyerson
It’s funny, we’re talking about challenge guns. Good to talk about the tubeless tires have a reputation of being difficult to get on and frustrating for people. Sometimes, because of that, I have tricks for getting them on. I like to make sure that there’s sealant that you’ve like lubed and greased the edge of the tire and the rim to make sure it slides on good. But what’s nice about them is, once they’re on, they really seat very nicely. And again, like I said earlier, I’m sort of shocked sometimes that I can get down to 20 or even 18 psi on a tubeless tire and not have it burp. So that is a limiter on the tubeless How low can you go where you’re making an aggressive corner with a lot of side force on that? That tire without causing it to burn. So that psi is going to be different again, for rider style, body weight and course conditions, and you simply have to experiment with it and find out for you and your equipment and the tire that you’re riding, what is that limit? And that ends up being as low as you can go. And you should be seeking that out. You should be trying to find out what is that lowest limit. And even take notes. Don’t just commit it to memory, write it down. Take out your phone. Make a note on this course, on this tie, or on this day, I use this psi so you create a track record for yourself that you can reference.
Trevor Connor
So that first cycle cross race I had a couple of years ago, these were all the things that I experienced firsthand, and that was one of them. I think I started about 2223 psi by halfway through the race, I was basically riding a flat
Chris Case
tire. Yeah, it was and you didn’t have a pit bike, right? No, I did not. Yeah, did you have the rack off of your bike at that point? He took the rack off. But
Trevor Connor
unfortunately, Kaylee frets on the sidelines every time I went by him. It’s just like, What the hell, Trevor? Catch up.
Chris Case
Oh, we could talk about heckling at some point, but that’s another episode.
Adam Meyerson
It is. I’ve written a lot about it and spoken a lot about it before. I’m not a fan of heckling and cross cheering over jeering every time.
Chris Case
All right, shall we shift gears again and talk a little bit about nutrition on race day? This is, like many things, a personal preference thing, a timing thing. So what are your tips here? Adam,
Adam Meyerson
it’s funny, because before we got to this modern era of fueling, there’s an anecdotal set of circumstances we used to call cross gut. And cross gut would happen. You’d basically get a stomach ache or a cramp after a cross race that at the time, and this is going back to the late 80s. Like I said, in early 90s, we didn’t quite understand what caused it or how it happened, but we were just eating too many carbs before a cross race. Because even though a cross race is very intense, you aren’t necessarily doing a lot of kilojoules of work. The event is short. That’s a lot of sprinting and coasting. And you know now we have power meters and ways to quantify that work. So on one hand, we have to make sure that we’re fueled up. It can be a long day. I’ve mentioned how much warmup you have to do, and there’s a certain amount of fitness that you have, like I said, not just for the race, but to be able to do all the course inspection that you want to do. And if that’s happening over the course of four hours, fueling is critical, but it is possible to eat too many blocks and gels and drink mixes and have those things sort of pile on top of each other and leave you with that dreaded cross cut from the high intensity of the race and the lack of digestion of all the carbs you’ve consumed. So I think a routine of having your last meal three hours before your event is still a fine way to approach the day and then maintaining or topping off between your warm up sessions, 250 to 500 calorie snacks. Let’s call them between warm up sessions and timed out to the start of the event, where you’re trying to make sure that you are starting with more or less an empty stomach. You’re not carrying food around with you. Cyclocross is dynamic. You’re moving around a lot. You certainly don’t want food or water bouncing around in your belly during the race. But you see now that people are taking gels partway through a cyclocross race, which is not a thing that we did in the past, because we understand so much more about carb consumption and combustion and that there is actual benefit to maybe getting a gel down, especially when you don’t need to drink water with you know, 15 or 30 minutes into your cyclocross race, for the last 15 to 30 minutes of the event, have you adopted that? I haven’t, but I’m here to give the advice, not follow the advice, right? So many times in the pro races now, they’ll come across the start line, where maybe it’s a paved start, and they have one underneath their leg like the good old days. Yeah. So, just curious, if you were doing that, I have said to myself that I also need to adopt that this year. You know, I sometimes get stuck in my ways, personally, because I’ve been doing things a certain way for a long time, and things change. And even though I am giving certain advice and I know what I should be doing, I may personally can’t be bothered to stick a gel off my shorts or later, you know? Yep, so yeah, but yes, I actually think it’s good advice, you know. I think previously, you might have said, hey, it’s a 45 minute cyclocross trace. You should be able to store all the carbohydrates you need to be able to form for that race. And yes, that’s true, but we also know perfectly well that a gel at that 15 or 30 minute mark will likely improve your performance and allow you to maintain that intensity till the end,
Trevor Connor
particularly for people listening to us, who are new to cyclocross and just starting out, your event is probably going to be 3035, minutes. And you know, these are quite technical. It’s hard to find places where you can eat. My recommendation is, if your event’s that long until you really get the hang of this, don’t try to be bringing food and figure out feeding strategies during the event you can get through
Adam Meyerson
agreed? I think for the elites who are racing 60 minute races, it becomes more important. In a beginner category, or a cat four or five novice category, and your race is 30 minutes, take a gel before the race. You’re be fine. It will get you to the finish without problem, and you’re absolutely right that you have other things to worry about, like dry. Living during the event.
Chris Case
What is your relationship with caffeine? Do you use it before
Adam Meyerson
races? Can be a complicated answer. Using the language, using caffeine, I’m a little uncomfortable with I eat food that sometimes has caffeine in it. That means I might drink coffee or even drink a Red Bull. And I don’t think of that as using caffeine. I drink coffee every morning. I enjoy coffee. Am I aware that I am also using caffeine? Of course, I can’t kid myself around that. So I mean, let’s back up and say, you know, what’s the ideal breakfast on race day? And the thing that I preach is it should be the breakfast that you’re eating every day, like no special meals on race day. If there’s an ideal meal for you for breakfast on race day. Make that your breakfast every other day of the week, because you’re also training and preparing for performance every day, if you’re an athlete or going to work in the morning, things like that. So for me, caffeine is part of that morning routine, because I have two cups of coffee every morning, and I do that on race day as well. Maybe my first cup is at home, and the second cup is in the van on the way to the race when it comes time to prepare for the race itself. This is another maybe not practicing what I preach. I am really attached to a Snickers bar and a Red Bull as part of my pre race. Let’s call it nutrition in quotes. Yeah. I get tired of energy bars. I find a Snickers bar to be that perfect mix of sugar and fat and easy to eat and taste good. And as opposed to drinking another coffee, a very small Red Bull also has sugar and caffeine, taurine, things like that, and the small can, I mean, you really get yourself in trouble with something like Red Bull. So I like to drink a Red Bull an hour before the start for all of the events, whatever the event I do is Snickers bar, and a Red Bull is part of my pre race nutrition. I don’t know that I recommend that. I’ve been racing bikes for a long time, and I do the things that I like to do that aren’t always the best advice. It’s a lot of Snickers bars over the years you’ve had, it’s true. And those are things that you can’t eat the rest of the time. You know, like a coke 50 miles into a ride is a lot different than a coke before bed, right? So, oh, absolutely, yeah, people need to keep that in mind. But yeah, I think stick with your normal routine to start with. If you caffeinate in the morning with coffee, continue with your routine. You don’t need to change things like that on race day, but let’s say an additional dose of caffeine in whatever form you enjoy, somewhere ending an hour before the start, not closer than an hour before the start, because you certainly want time to empty your stomach might make you feel nice in your event.
Suzy Sanchez
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Chris Case
Adam, you’ve done a lot of these races. Can you take us through the mental aspect as well as the physical aspect of the race?
Adam Meyerson
Sure, I think again, for folks who haven’t done a lot of cyclocross or new to cyclocross, I think one of the things that’s unique is the field sprint comes at the start of the race, as opposed to the finish. Every cyclocross race starts with a field sprint, and how that goes for you, what happens at the start is also largely determined by where you are lining up. It’s a very different experience to be in the first row of eight riders than it might be to be in the eighth row of eight riders. Your experience in that first minute of the race is gonna be very different. But ultimately, everyone’s goal is to get to the first narrowing of the course, the first selection on the course, as far forward in the field as you can get, because even if you may not be able to sustain that pace for the entire 30 or 45 or 60 Minutes, putting as many people behind you before any kind of bottleneck or narrowing is gonna potentially affect the how the next 15 or 30 or 45 minutes go. So everybody starts with a sprint, and often the first lap of a cyclocross race can be the hardest effort you make for the day. It starts with a sprint and continues with a vo two level effort, and then you settle down into your race pace at some point. I often like to divide cross races into thirds. However long your race is, there’s the start where it’s chaos and you’re racing in traffic and can’t get the lines that you want, and you’re going harder than you want to go, and you’re maybe making maybe making inadvisable, big efforts to pass one person who’s only going to pass you back at the next corner. Learning how to be efficient with your efforts is something that takes a lot of experience. If I’m known for anything, I think in my career, it’s for peddling less than everybody else, for doing the most with a little bit less talent than the people around me. I think if there was a contest for the least amount of power spent for the results, that was something that I was always good at. So being judicious with your efforts is very important. But once you settle into your group, that’s the first third of the race is, where are you going to land? And that middle part of the race, you’ll find out quickly. Are you going forward from a bad start, or are you stronger than the people around you? Are you paying for your start or backsliding through the field in that middle part of the race as you settle in? Or did you find the group that you want to be in? And you spend the middle part of the race like maintaining what you’ve done, and then the last part of the race is where you’re starting to think about the finish. What do I have to do to beat the people that I’m with, or do I have to maintain that? You know, if it’s a muddy race and everybody’s just racing the course rather than each other, can you sustain that pace all the way to the finish? Can you raise the pace if you need to catch the person in front of you or hold off the person behind you? How much
Chris Case
visualization do you use before a race? If any?
Adam Meyerson
I would say that not to the extent of, you know, the way a ski racer memorizes their turns. And you know, you have that almost cliched image of them at the start house, bobbing their head around and visualizing every turn. But it is like that in in that you should have your lines dialed before the race. You may discover in the race that what you thought was going to be the case isn’t true. Lines change throughout the day. Lines that were there in your pre ride are no longer there for you, and so you have to make a plan and then be prepared to completely discard that plan, or be flexible about the plan that you made. You can’t stay married to what you hoped to be the case. You have to learn also from the people around you a line that you thought was gonna work may change because you’re observing someone in a group that you’re with, or someone that you’re following, doing something that hadn’t occurred to you, or adapting to the course differently from you, and so do you have to adjust what you’re doing? So there is a certain amount of course memorization that you want to do in that course inspection that I think you could tie into visualization, where knowing what you want to be and where you want to make your moves, but only to a degree.
Chris Case
And what about patience? You talked a little bit about your efficient nature and being judicious with your power output. How critical Do you think patience is? Universally in cyclocross,
Adam Meyerson
it really depends on the course and the way the race is going to be raced. If you have a muddy day, heavy mud, a heavy track where you know, or one might be able to determine that the course is going to be about negative splits or lap times. There’s not going to be any group racing. You’re not going to be doing any drafting. It’s going to be about taking good lines, being consistent, not making mistakes. Then you can be on those days more patient. The start is less important on those days, because drafting isn’t going to matter, and there’s going to be room to move, and it’s important not to go over your limit on days like that, because on muddy days, heavy tracks, if you blow on a heavy track, you crawl right. There’s no drafting, there’s no rolling. It’s like cracking on a climb. Muddy races are very similar to long climbs, and so on those days, it pays to be patient and focus on consistent lap times. On those days, you race with lap times in mind, rather than the groups. On fast days where there’s drafting and a wide enough course to follow wheels or move up a little bit of pack racing on those days, it may benefit you to over start a little to make a group that you can draft and stay with that is going to go faster than you might be able to go on your own. And so yeah, you might take some risks with the effort that you make in hopes of making a group before the splits happen. So yeah, I think the kind of router you are also matters too. If you’re a good starter, fast starter. If you’re a sprinter, counter intuitively. Sometimes you can get yourself in trouble at the start because it’s very easy for you to start fast. But any sprinter will tell you those fast starts aren’t free. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes, as a sprinter, it’s best to be conservative at the start and save that match to jump across to a group, not to use your good start to end up in a group that you actually can’t ride with. That’s a very difficult ego management problem to solve as well.
Trevor Connor
I love the fact that you two talk from the perspective of people who have won a lot of cross races. I talk from the perspective of the guy that’s way at the back that you lap. And I was gonna raise that, you know, it’s great for everybody to go and do cyclocross and enjoy the experience. Not every one of us is going there to win it, and you have to be careful about things like here, you got to sprint. You got to get that great position. But if you sprint off the start line and you get to, like, third wheel, before the course narrows, and you’re new to cross, and you don’t have the skills right, you’re going to have a lot of angry riders behind you.
Adam Meyerson
That experience happens at every level. So when I went to Europe to race, I was one of the last people called up, and I was winning races at home, but I was the last call up in Europe, and so I knew that I was gonna lose a minute to spend nice in the first half of the first lap if I was a minute down at the end of lap one, I had done a good job, and that my goal for that race was to not get lapped, and so I wasn’t racing the people around me. I was essentially racing Sven nice and Bart Wellens at the front of that field, and trying to do the lap times that I needed to do to be able to finish on the lead lap. And that’s the same experience that a beginner rider, or even not a beginner rider, a back of the pack rider at. Any level is going to have. So if you’re lining up 40th, are you going to sprint off the start line? Definitely not, because you’re just going to sprint into a wall. And part of being efficient in cross is definitely not sprinting into dead ends. I mean, all bike racing, this is advice I give for criterium racing too. Don’t sprint into dead ends. Anticipate the dead ends. Back off. Predict Your entrance speed. Figure out where you can pedal less, so that you can get to those trafficky spots not having over pedaled at the appropriate entrance speed, so that you can roll those turns or latch onto that group and spend your effort on the exits, on the accelerations, so that you are maximizing your variable power output over the course of the race in a way that is economical, pedal hard, and the opportunities where it’s gonna actually reward you, as opposed to sprinting into dead
Trevor Connor
ends. And the other thing I’ll quickly mention, just from that other perspective, a lot of cyclocross courses are short, and you’ll see half of the field or more get lapped. And if you’re one those riders getting lapped, it’s really important at that point you’re not interfering in the race. So keep the eyes in the back your head, and when you see the leaders coming. A, be predictable. Don’t swerve into them. But B, you know, do them a favor. And as they’re catching up to you, get off of the optimal line so that you’re not interfering with their race. Absolutely. Yeah, and I think
Adam Meyerson
that goes both ends too. So it does take experience to know how to get laughed. There’s actually a video of me on the internet being lapped in a European race, and it’s other people have passed around as the example of correct behavior when you’re being laughed just I happen to be on international television when it happened, for better or for worse, but so new riders are not necessarily experienced in being lapped. Yet, the thing to remember is that everybody’s race matters, and whether you’re being laughed or doing the lapping, both experiences are equally valuable and important. You both paid your entry fee, and you both deserve to be out there, but etiquette matters on both ends. So if you’re doing the lapping, unless it’s a championship event, try to remember, and maybe even then, try to remember it’s not the end of the world. You can give people some space. You can let them know that you’re coming in a way that allows them to be predictable, and you can cheer them on a little bit as you go by. And that’s how we keep people in the sport. One of the things for people new to the sport that I like to do with them, and as you’re talking about your perspective as someone who’s less experienced racing, not at the front of the race, is to when you finish your race, go out and observe the other categories and watch the lines that they take, watch their technique. Sometimes cyclocross, it’s always about who goes around the course faster. But sometimes the fastest line is the least obvious line you know. And to a beginner or a novice or an inexperienced rider, they always want to hit the apex of the corner as an example. They always want to dive in, you know. And sometimes that’s really slow compared to other lines, and that’s just not obvious. So observing upper or more experienced athletes doing it is a great way to learn more about how to do it. Yeah, absolutely right. I have always referred to this as a style that we call a largo style, large style, big lines, everything between the tape belongs to you, and you have to not follow the brown stripe that forms in the morning from the beginner categories. Now you may be in that beginner category and are essentially part of making that what I call the brown stripe. The brown stripe isn’t the best line, and the brown stripe happens at a slow speed by people who haven’t learned good line choices yet. And so if you’re in one of those afternoon categories, that brown stripe can be mesmerizing. You think that’s the line, but everybody should remember that you have to use the entire course and the long way is often the fast way. Ride the edges of the tape. Look for places to carry your momentum, places where you don’t have to slam your brakes on and then sprint out of the turn. Going a long way allows you to carry your momentum. That’s often the best choice. I think that has changed a little bit with disc brakes and lighter bikes and better tires, the kids are often capable of going the short way, in a way that my generation with candle lever brakes and griffos as mud tires, definitely could not have done. And so I’ve adjusted my style as well to look for the short way. But in general, use the whole course. Be creative. Express Yourself. Carry your momentum. Don’t be afraid to ride across ruts or switch sides and ride right up against the edge of the tape.
Chris Case
Before we end let’s hear from Grant one more time about the joy of cyclocross and how community plays a huge role in making this his favorite discipline.
Grant Holicky
I love that sport, and I love that discipline, and everything that is, that discipline, I think, can enhance the joy. You’re in a place where your friends and family can watch. You’re in a place where there’s food, there’s community, there’s social aspect, there’s other people. It’s different from a road race, where you’re gonna go out in the middle of nowhere and you’re surrounded only by the people that are in the race. There’s people cheering, there’s interaction. In those ways. So I think that you can lean into that in terms of the preparation for a race, and know that there’s a community there, right? So if something goes wrong, you’re going to be able to walk over to another tent and get the tool you need, or get a trainer. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times as a team director, I lent out our feedback trainers for other people to warm up, or just brought them into our tent to let them warm up. So I think that community aspect of cyclocross is so important, and it feeds that joy if you let it, and that helps prepare you for the race, and it’s a backstop for, like, everything that we need. I’ve literally thought to myself going to local races, okay, I think I have everything, but if I don’t, I gonna be able to find it. It’s not that big of a deal. So I really think it can help in terms of your preparation. And I will say this, on the other side of that coin, going to a cyclocross race for me is like going to a reunion. Everybody that I know is there, and everybody that I know wants to talk to me, and I want to talk to them, and it is very easy to miss my warm up, to miss my food, to miss all of those things, because I’m interacting and talking to the people that share this love for this sport and this place the same way I do
Chris Case
So Adam, we close out every episode that we do on fast Talk with take homes. We’re asking you a really big question, which is to take all 12 163 cross races that you’ve ever done and boil it down into one minute. That’s obviously not true, but from this episode in this discussion and the race day discussion, what is your key message to listeners?
Adam Meyerson
I guess it’s understanding what’s unique about cyclocross and then racing and training appropriately with that in mind. And what’s unique about it is it is the heart rate response of a time trial where you’re making more or less maximum effort from start to finish, and we’ll have a heart rate that is essentially pegged at threshold for the entire time with a power output that is incredibly variable, like a criterium with huge accelerations, followed by periods of coasting, where, in those periods of coasting, you’re also trying to execute a skill and so Learning how to be judicious and efficient with your power, but also making a point of investing in those places. You shouldn’t ride a cyclocross race like a steady state time trial. You should be sprinting out of every corner. You should pay back every opportunity to coast with an acceleration. You should coast into the barriers and sprint out. You should coast into turns and sprint out of the turns maximize the speed changes to maximize your lap times. The fastest way around a cyclocross course is not a steady state effort. The fastest way around a cyclocross course is a variable power effort with sprinting and coasting.
Chris Case
You know, I’ve also done a lot of cyclocross races, and I naturally gravitated toward it because it’s so damn fun, and I think the message that I would like to put out there is, remember that you’re doing it for fun. Cyclocross can be nerve wracking at the start. It can be really chaotic, especially with big fields. Try to go into that being mindful that it’s about having fun. Don’t get so worked up about it. Try to understand where you are in the pack. If you’re on the front, you have an obligation in a different way than you do if you’re middle of the pack. If you’re middle of the pack, your obligation is to not try to barge your way to the front and cause a bunch of other people to crash. So have fun in the race. It’s such a challenge because every corner is an opportunity to choose a little bit different line, take a half second here and a half second there, and improve. And then, of course, you’ve got weather conditions that also play into how the race might change throughout the course of the day, and choosing different lines and all of that, I feel like can be fun if you have the right mindset and right approach. So as you can tell, I love it. It’s so much fun. I encourage people to try it if they haven’t, and if they’re into gravel racing and they want to have even more fun on a fixed course, on a short course that doesn’t take 18 hours to ride and complete. This is a great way to hone bike skills, have a different physiological effort, and surround yourself in a community that loves racing bikes, Shark
Adam Meyerson
track, gravel, we need y’all. We’re waiting for you. That’s right. So
Trevor Connor
my take home, I’m gonna kind of represent the rider like me, and I’m just gonna be blunt. I’m an awful cross racer. I can attest to that. I do it every fall because it’s fun. The neat thing about cross in road racing, if your strength isn’t there and you get popped from the peloton, it’s over. Yeah, there’s nothing really fun after that cyclocross. I’m awful. I get laughed, but I have a ton of fun. Yeah, exactly. So I think my take home is, know which type you are. I think there’s lots of great advice out there for that. Person who’s there to win the race technique, like we didn’t even talk about how to cross barriers. And I’ll give you the example. I mean, I have read all the here’s how you do barriers. Here’s the whole technique. Adam, you’re probably out there twice a week practicing the technique. I don’t practice it at all. So I know what to do. I don’t do it because I know I’ll end up on my face. Sure. So you know, the one thing I want to represent is the neat thing about cyclocross is, no matter how good or bad you are, it can be a ton of fun, but if you’re more the rider like me, do the prep to go out there and just have fun. And don’t worry too much about, am I keeping up with the guys at the front?
Adam Meyerson
Yeah, there’s a good time to be had, and even competitive racing to be had at every point in the field. There’s important racing happening at the back of the field for people who are having a good time, there’s always a peer to race with you’re exactly right about there’s no field to get dropped from, right? There’s just friends to race with the whole way around the course. Good message and Don Thank you, Adam, thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. That was another episode of fast talk. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcasts. Don’t forget, we’re on YouTube now and subscribe to listen to us there. As always, be sure to leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen. To learn more about this episode, from show notes to References, visit us@fasttalklabs.com
Chris Case
and to join the conversation on our forum, go to forums.fasttalklabs.com for Adam Meyerson, Grant holicky And Trevor Connor, I’m Chris case. Thanks for listening. You.
