Pittsburgh Cyclocross

Pittsburgh Cyclocross presents Bryan Routledge’s recount of the JBV Coaching/ProBikes clinic from the end of September. Thanks Bryan!

by Bryan Routledge

Fall arrived and I finally bought myself a cross bike. It was nice to ride it on the trails and the change from the road bike was a relief. But, you buy a bike to race and cross, so I hear, is a blast to race. A quick-few instructional videos on Youtube and I am out the door to test things out. How hard can it be? One dismount and (ugly) remount later I am bruised, maybe broken. Fortunately, in my in-box is a notice that Chris Mayhew is hosting a cyclocross clinic. Maybe that will be a bit less painful.

On Saturday September 25 about 20 or so people gathered in Frick Park. The weather was perfectly sunny and crisp. The Pro Bikes team had a little tent set up with some free Hammer Gel and demo bikes. Chris opened with a quick description of the mount-carry-remount. Then we went through each element step by step. Walking and remounting. A little faster and remounting. Next up was a discussion of the dismount and the carry and onto the barriers. Since lugging the bike over the barriers repeatedly is a little hard on the chicken-skinny arms (perhaps that is just my view), interspersed was a nice discussion of bike stuff and bike set-up. Of particular interest was tire pressure. Apparently, the “max 75psi” on the sidewall of my tire is not a good guide. Who knew? We finished up the four hour clinic with a description and practice of a few starts.

The whole clinic was great and I was surprised when the time was up. The next day I was pretty sore from the lifting o’the bike. But was not bruised and/or broken from remounts. Progress. On to the races.

Thanks to Chris, Pro Bikes, and Brett Rothmeyer