We were lucky enough to get to go to Cyclocross World Championships this past weekend, and the racing was phenomenal. If you haven’t, make sure you watch the replay on GCN or FloBikes, or at least watch a highlight reel! We’re not a race recap site, so we won’t get too into depth about the racing itself, but we did want to touch on a few of the key takeaways that we thought about during the races—the stuff that can apply to any athlete, not just the top pros!
Race smarter, not harder
In the women’s race, Marianne Vos really showed the importance of tactical racing in the last lap. And even in the men’s race, Thomas Pidcock’s attack was perfectly timed with a minor bobble by the Belgians. Ultimately, what won the races was strength, but without smart tactics, the results may have been different. Moral of the story isn’t that you should only focus on tactics, obviously. But that tactics and technique do matter. A lot of what we talk about is that there are so many skills that can’t be learned on the trainer, and this race was proof of that. All the watts won’t help if you’re not a smart racer. Some of that just comes with time and total number of races, but you can also be learning and practicing even as a beginner.
Standing is a necessary skill
There’s just no amount of Zwift riding that’s going to give you that ability to stand and pedal hard on the bike. On the trainer, the bike doesn’t move side to side. So you don’t really do a lot of standing and certainly not the explosive standing that you need in a race. Pidcock was able to grow his gap when he hit the long climb on the course, and if you watch him go, he’s using his entire body to pedal up that hill. You have to get outside and practice that in order to really get good at climbing. Because you’re relying on this bike leaning side to side and you’re sort of jumping side to side on each pedal, then using the bodyweight to move the bike forward, essentially putting all your body weight, it’s a skill that needs practice.
There’s not a ‘winning age’ in most sports
Pidcock is just out of U23, as is Eli Iserbyt. Vos is in her mid-30s, Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado is 10 years younger. Katerina Nash was 13th and she’s in her 40s. Because sports like cyclocross are so skill-based, there are benefits that come from doing the sport for 10+ years, and there are benefits to being young and fresh in the sport. So, this was just a reminder that no matter what age you are, you can still absolutely crush it.
Conventional wisdom isn’t always right
In the women’s race, Vos raced with a water bottle. Many of the elite men opted to do so as well (it was warmer on their race day so more did it). Normally, that wouldn’t happen in CX, but the temps were just warm enough that riders wanted that quick sip of water each lap to get them through the race. And that’s not conventional. Heck, many CX bikes don’t even have bottle braze-ons! But these top riders decided to go against tradition and use water bottles. Clearly, it worked. This isn’t to say ‘add a bottle to your cx bike.’ This is just to say that sometimes, you have to choose what feels right for you, not what everyone has done in the past. It might work spectacularly, it might blow up in your face. But it’s OK to try something that feels right for you.
So, that’s what we learned this year! Make sure you watch those replays for some trainer inspiration + happy riding!
Before you go, check out our book, Becoming A Consummate Athlete, right here:
