I’m not really into analyzing bike races.  You could do it all day and probably not be more than 25% correct.  There is so much stuff going on with each rider, that it is impossible to really know what truly happened.  That is for sure the case yesterday at Cyclocross Nationals in Austin.  I might have got to see more of the race, sitting in a basement in Lawrence Kansas, than actually watching it in person in Austin, but I only got to follow what the cameras allowed me to see.

With that said, it is easy to analyze what happened yesterday in Austin in the U23, woman’s and men’s Elite races.  At least at the front.

Logan Owen is really just that much better than everyone else in the U23 category.  He has now won 11 straight National Championships.  That isn’t a fluke.  The course was much more tricky when he was racing than when the Elite men were competing a couple hours later.  More moisture and less of a ridden in groove.  But, he rode a pretty flawless race and won easily.

The women’s race was interesting.  I missed the start because Vincent was trying to stream the BTB TV directly from Youtube and it wasn’t streaming.  We started it about 1/3 a lap in, and Katie Compton was buried.  At least for her.  I have no idea how she got back there.  After the race, from her interview, it sounded like she wanted to start easy and then ride into it.  In my opinion, that is a horrible tactic.  The chances of having a catastrophic issue back there trying to pass people, especially on the first lap, are multiplied by 20.

She is so much better than most other American women, that she should be able to start at the front and stay there.  I would love to get a few weeks of riding with Katie.  She is so good in most aspects of the sport, but missing some really important ingredients.  Enough that she sometimes struggles early in big races when she should really be settling in.

But, it took less than a lap to catch the front and she led over the finish line after one lap.  It was pretty much done from then.  I don’t think Katie was having her best day on the bike, but it was good enough.  The fight for 2nd was good until Rachel Loyd fell hard and screwed up her bike a bit.  That was just enough to separate her and Kaitlin Antonneau.   That was how it finished.  Kaitlin rides cyclocross beautifully and is only going to get better.  It seems like she can ride in treacherous conditions about as good as anyone.  Her finishing less than 30 seconds behind Katie was a victory in itself.  Rachel keeping it together after crashing and not getting rattled, still finishing 3rd, is also a victory.  They both rode pretty great.

The men’s race, well it was pretty predictable.  We all made our pre-race predictions.  I picked Powers winning, Page, 2nd and Summerhill 3rd.  Summerhill finished 4th, ruining a perfect guess.

I wanted to pick Jonathan Page to win, but the course had dried up too much by the time the men were ready to start.  It wasn’t nearly as slick as when the U23 guys rode and the lines were starting to form.  I think if it would have be just a tad more wet, Jonathan, and maybe even Zach McDonald, might have given Jeremy Powers a little more of a challenge.  Not that Jonathan didn’t keep Jeremy right there.

I think if Jonathan wouldn’t had flatted and lost contact with Jeremy, it would have been a much closer race throughout.  Or if Jonathan wouldn’t have pitted a couple times early, he could have made up the distance he lost from the flat.

I was mildly amazed how many guys were riding into the 2nd pit to change bikes, when the pit line was maybe 3-5 seconds slower than the racing course line.  Even the guys racing for 4-6 kept doing it.  If I would have been there, advising a rider, I would have told them to stay out of that pit as much as possible.  But, from the streaming video, it was hard seeing how gummed up the bikes were getting, so it is really hard to know exactly how many times they truly needed to get a new bike.

Jonathan Page had bad luck again, flatting early.  I was mildly surprised that not more riders flatted yesterday.  Rocks with mud are usually a recipe for that, but it seemed that didn’t really happen much.  I think Zach McDonald might have flatted too, so I guess 2 out of the top 3 did, so maybe it was more common than it seemed.

Jeremy Powers really just rode like a machine.  He didn’t even look like he was trying that hard.  That is a sign that he was pretty under control the whole race.  He was a very deserving winner.  He’s concentrating on going fast one day a week.  And it seems like it is working out for him perfectly.  Hopefully he can keep his season long form until the end of the month for Worlds in Tabor.

We rode 35 miles over to Lawrence to watch the race on a big screen at Matt Gilhausen’s house.

61 starters. They could have used a few of those Masters that they ruled out of competition.

Bromont was uninterested in watching the race. He much prefers seeing it live.

I didn’t get to see any of the junior races, on the Internet, Monday at Cyclocross Nationals, because I was on my bike riding over to Lawrence.  But, if this article is close to true, which I have no reason to doubt, then USA Cycling, completely dropped the ball, just when, I thought they did a pretty okay job of salvaging a pretty disastrous situation.

The article is about how that they really didn’t have enough time to run all the juniors events separately, so they decided to combine some categories.  Someone made a horrible decision and decided to combine the Junior 17-18 boys with the Junior 17-18 and 15-16 girls.  Plus, they started the girls categories back 1 and 2 minutes respectively.  All in all, 96 juniors, boys and girls, on the course at the same time.  That is close to double the size of the Elite men’s field.

Wow is about all I can say.  Obviously, it was “pulling carnage” for the officials.  And I really honestly think that many officials at cyclocross races concentrate on pulling riders more than just about anything else.

All the 15-16 girls were pulled.  11 out of 18 of them got pulled the first lap, the remainder on lap two.   The 17-18 girls faired better.  Only 70% of their field was pulled, with 5 actually finishing the race.

The two 15-16 year olds that were “racing” for 3rd, got pulled and were awarded 3rd and 4th without even knowing they were finished.  The winner was pulled.  It’s a joke.

There are a ton of programs throughout the country that are pretty much exclusively concentrating on attracting juniors into the sport of cyclocross.  It is really one of the best things about this resurgence of the sport here in the United States.  Our cyclocross is a participatory sport.  And it doesn’t work if we can’t convince young riders to try it.

And this is how we reward them.  We yank them off the course, at the National Championships, because they are getting lapped by riders that are 2 years older, plus male, after we docked them 2 minutes at the start.  I wonder who came up with that plan?   Whoever it was, should be fired.

Honestly, I really wonder what they were thinking?  It is obvious that all that were involved in the start order decision either, one, had never been to a cyclocross, or two, just didn’t give a shit about the junior girls.  Because the results were going to be obvious.  It seems like everyone is more concerned about pulling riders than having a fair competition.

Like it says in the article linked above –

Note:  if you’re a USA Cycling representative or Austin 2015 representative, and want to add a comment, rebuttal, fact, or perspective to this discussion, feel free to email me at [email protected] and I’ll post it here verbatim. (Or just leave a comment in the comment section here.)  I fully accept that I wasn’t there and don’t know every issue that may have contributed to the decisions that were made.  There may be an explanation for these events that I am not aware of, and if so, I would love to hear it.

I found this stamp yesterday, laying around the house. It is from the 1979 Cyclocross World Championships in Italy.