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Remember how Richard rode the World Masters Cyclocross Championships last year, and how things didn’t go exactly to plan? Well, he vowed to return this year and, relatively speaking, managed to exorcise his demons.

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Last year’s UCI World Masters Cyclocross Championships could definitely be (for me at least) categorised as “type 2 fun”. As I wrote shortly after on the R&A Blog, my race was blighted by mechanical issues pretty much from the word go. Heavy rain over the previous week (and on the day itself) made the course very muddy. If you have a crew of helpers washing and prepping your cache of spare bikes to swap over onto each lap, this isn’t a problem. However, as a privateer with one bike and no helpers, my ride quickly became clogged up with muck, causing the chain to come off on multiple occasions.

Having soldiered on to the bitter end I finished last. Dead last.

At the time, I vowed to return in 2022 and try to improve on my result. My entry was submitted in September and approved pretty much straight away. Clearly COVID and the cost of living crisis was still having an impact on individual riders and their decision whether or not to race, particularly those from outside the UK. “If they’ll have me back they must be desperate,” I thought.

As in 2021, the Ipswich course hosted a round of the Eastern Cyclocross League the weekend prior to the “worlds”. It also doubled up as the annual regional championships. That gave us locals the opportunity to recce the course again in advance of the main event the following week. As is often the case at the end of November, the weather was pretty wet and wild. The course was heavy going but not as bad as the world championships the previous year. The organisers had also made some subtle alterations to the course that definitely helped reduce the possibility of mechanicals. In particular, the approach to the first flyover, which saw me dropping my chain on so many occasions last year, had been straightened out. It was now a long, fast approach, and that meant a higher gear on the way up and not having shift on the way back down.

On the down side, the organisers has trucked in a huge quantity of sand to create a pit of around 30 metres in length, which we’d all have to negotiate. Being a wet day, the sand was actually pretty easy to ride – the added moisture helped it compact. Perhaps not what the organisers were hoping for?

After the regionals, there was some cause for optimism. I’d had a fair result and, with similarly fair conditions, next week could see me improve on my 2021 result.

My mind is always focused on the weather in the days leading up to a race. It has a huge bearing on how you set up your bike, particularly tyre choice and tyre pressure. If conditions are wet and muddy, then very knobbly tyres ridden at ridiculously low pressures are the order of the day. If things are drier and firmer – less tread and more pressure. Riding on a shoestring budget, I don’t have the luxury of multiple sets of wheels set up with different types of tyre. Instead, I have to take the middle ground – what’s known as an “intermediate” tyre and adjust the pressures as best I can.

The weather improved dramatically between the regionals and the worlds. It was cold but dry, and high winds helped dry out the course dramatically. When I arrived on the Saturday morning, the difference in conditions was striking. The course has dried out so much I was able to increase my tyre pressures by about 10psi front and rear. There was chatter on Facebook pages that some riders were intending to ride “file tread” tyres – something rarely seen at this time of year.

We were allowed onto the course for half an hour practice prior to the race. It’s fair to say I was delighted with the dry, fast conditions. Dry conditions meant virtually no mud, which meant bikes would stay clean and not having spare bikes and pit crew wouldn’t be a disadvantage.

My race number and start position was 79 – one row further up than last year and, more importantly, without Nick Craig – British cyclocross legend and runner up last year – directly behind me. I got a clean enough start and as we approached the end of the start / finish straight and things settled down, I was quietly satisfied.

First time up and over the flyover – no mud, no issues. Fantastic. Over the hurdles then round to a tricky off-camber section, except the organiser had decided to take it out to avoid a bottleneck. This was going well. Onto the sand – not so great. No rain meant the sand had dried out, making it looser and more difficult to ride. It’s fair to say I didn’t ride the sand very well. Into the 4×4 area – a bit of mud but so much quicker than last week. Onto the wooded section – technical singletrack which is probably my favourite terrain. I rode it pretty well but it’s hard to get past anyone – you’re following wheels all the way through. Out into the windy, open areas then back over the start finish line. Lap 1 done and dusted.

Looking around me I could see several riders ahead and a few behind. Relatively speaking this was going well. Over the course of the next lap, I managed to get past another couple of riders then swapped positions with several up until the penultimate lap. At that point the elastic snapped – the constant efforts to keep up with those around me took its toll. I accepted my fate and settled in to ride out the final lap and a half, safe in the knowledge the riders behind me were too far away to be a threat.

I crossed the finish line a lap down on the winner (standard) but feeling satisfied with my efforts. I wasn’t aware of my exact finish position, but it didn’t matter – the race had gone well. As it turned out, I had improved on my previous year’s result. Just.

The much drier conditions meant for a much faster race. A week before with all the mud, the organisers were predicting the best riders would be lapping in around 10 minutes. As it turned out, the best riders were lapping in under 8 minutes and even us lot at the back were capable of sub 10 minute laps. The faster conditions do, however, make it more difficult to gain places and once I was into my groove there wasn’t much scope for moving up.

In the end I finished second to last which, on the face of it, doesn’t sound like much to shout about. The whole day was a much more pleasurable experience, however, and there were a couple of riders who I had been ahead of that DNF’d. Had they finished my result would have looked even more respectable. It was also reassuring to see a couple of local riders finishing just ahead of me who, in league races, have the advantage of higher grid positions. As I build a bigger set of results at a local level, I should be able to compete at the more pointier end of my races.

The World Masters moves to Hamburg for 2023 so it looks like I won’t be racing next year. However, the good thing about masters racing is there’s no upper age limit – as long as you can sling a leg over your bike you can race. This year, there was one woman competing in the 75+ category, and two men took to the line in the 80+ category. On that basis, circumstances should be favourable for me to make a return before I hang my wheels up. You never know – I might even win it one day.

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The opportunity to ride in a real world championships was impossible to resist for R&A director Richard Stiff. Though the experience didn’t perhaps quite live up to expectations.

Mud is Thicker than Water

I started racing “cross” about 12 years ago. The traditional off-season pursuit of professional road cyclists (well, at least Belgian and Dutch road cyclists) has a cult following outside low countries, with the USA, UK and Japan being strongholds. In summary, the sport requires competitors to race their bikes flat out round a course consisting of mixed terrain, from tarmac to gravel, sand, grass, loam and every type of mud you can imagine. Purists would say “the muddier the better,” though personally I prefer fast flowing singletrack. Either way, a taste of blood in the mouth is as good a litmus test as any to check you’ve tried hard enough during the race.

Since the beginning, my racing has been almost exclusively done in my regional league that covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Then, two years ago, cycling’s governing body – the Union Cycliste Internationale – selected Ipswich to host the 2021 and 2022 editions of the Masters Cyclocross World Championships. Local organiser and bike shop owner Steve Grimwood has been putting on cyclocross races for what seems like forever, including league races, regional championships, rounds of the National Trophy and even the elite level European Championships in 2012.

Masters cycling is for older, amateur riders. There is no qualification process (although the organisers will pick the best riders if places are limited) and anyone can apply to compete in their respective age group. After a bit of deliberation, I decided I would apply to race. I knew I would be “terrible” in comparison to most of my fellow competitors, but expected to be able to look at the results and see other names below mine. To my surprise, my application was approved without any fuss – apart from being moved into the 50-54 age category race, in spite of being 49 on the day.

The week before the “worlds” I had an opportunity to recce the course. A round of the Eastern League was being hosted at Trinity Park, which has been a regular haunt for cyclocrossers for several years. It was fairly heavy going but not too heavy. Much like the rest of the season just ended, my performance was disappointing, but I had the advantage of knowing the course better than most racing in a week’s time.

In the days running up to the race the weather was pretty damp. The championships started on the Friday, with the women’s 55+, the men’s 55-64 and 65+ races held in temperatures hovering around zero. My race was on the Saturday. Heavy rain was forecast between 5am and 9am, and so it turned out. I arrived at Trinity Park at 7:30 (to sign on) and it was heaving with rain. It didn’t give up until just before my allotted course practice time, around 9:30. My fears had been realised – in places the going was really heavy, and without the luxury of spare bikes and pit crew to clean them, I’d be racing on a seriously clogged up bike within a couple of laps.

Course practice over and I returned to the car to wash the bike down ready for my race. My final warm up was held on the tarmac roads inside the show ground. No point getting the bike dirty again before starting. In cyclocross races riders are “gridded up” based on their previous results, much like the start grid of a Formula 1 race, but because this was an international field with no easy way of comparing riders, start positions were drawn at random. There were 97 riders in my race, gridded up in rows of 8. I was called up as rider 87 (last but one rider on row 11) and I was fine with that – I was going to start pretty much where I expected (hoped) to finish. Eventual winner, German national champion Jens Schwedler, was probably not that fussed by his row 8 start, especially as he’d got his nose in front by the end of the start straight. 

Once we’d all been called up and riders were removing jackets and tossing them to their helpers, I casually looked round to see legend of British cyclocross and mountain biking – Nick Craig – was right behind me. Now, if anyone deserved to be on row 1 it was Nick. He was going to have to fight his way through a grid of almost 100 riders to get to the front of the race. This didn’t put my mind at ease either. “What if I hold Nick up?” and “what if I crash and bring Nick down with me?” Crashes are commonplace at the start of cyclocross races – imagine dozens of bike riders, starting 8 abreast and going all out to their neck in front before the first corner – chaos usually ensues (though that’s part of the fun). I needn’t have worried – Nick went past me in a couple of pedal strokes and then managed to avoid the rider who somehow managed to rip his gears off and come grinding to a halt.

My start was distinctly average, but that was ok. I had a bit of space and had time to react in case anything unexpected happened. As the initial chaos of the start unravelled and everyone settled in, I found myself in a group of about 8 riders. We were evenly matched on the grassy, open stretches of the course, but as we headed into the wooded, singletrack section it was clear I was being held up by those in front of me. This was good – on each lap I could pick off riders as we went through the more technical sections.

As we headed into lap 2, we hit the first of the two scaffold flyovers on the course. This one had a tight turn at the bottom, so you had to be in a low gear to get up and over. I shifted down, rode up and shifted back up to get some speed on the way back down to ground level. As the pedals turned, I couldn’t feel any tension in the chain. I looked down to find my bike was clogged with mud which had forced the chain off when I shifted back up. Disaster – I had to stop and put the chain back on. It probably cost me 10 seconds or so. Most of the good work on lap 1 had been undone in a couple of pedal revs.

Not to worry – I knew I could get back onto the group of riders ahead and this would only be a temporary setback.

The remainder of lap 2 passed without any issues. As I hit the very long start / finish straight I could see I was slowly gaining on the group ahead. I was within spitting distance as we headed to flyover 1 for the third time. It was a case of deja-vu as my chain came off in the same circumstances. This time it took longer to get the chain back on and my quarry was out of sight. Game over – all that was left was to see out the race and perhaps try and pick off the odd straggler.

My bike was having none of it. It probably weighed a kilo more than it did when we started, weighed down as it was with mud and grass. On lap four I managed to get over the flyover without dropping my chain but still had stop when it came off in the very muddy section that is normally used for 4×4 safaris. Around this time race leader Jens Schwedler came flying past, riding a virtually clean bike that he’d just swapped over in the pits.

Remember Nick Craig and my concerns about holding him up? Well, he lapped me shortly after Jens, just as I started my fifth and final lap. In spite of his start position Nick managed to finish just 38 seconds behind Jens.

On my final lap I dropped my chain on the flyover yet again and, for good measure dropped it another time in the 4×4 section. I finally crossed the line dead last – 1 lap and 8 minutes behind our champion. By the time I rode in, Jens had probably showered, changed, received his rainbow jersey and winners medal, sung his national anthem and done post-race interviews.

All in all, my race day had been probably as bad as it’s ever been (and that’s saying something given we’re talking about a sport where things often go wrong). But I had ridden in an actual world championship and my misfortune was mainly down to a lack of resources – spare bikes and a pit crew would have made all the difference. Would I do it again? Of course – I got the cyclocross bug all those years ago, and despite the falls, fails and other mishaps I still love doing it. A few weeks after the worlds I was back racing my local league (though that race came to a premature end because of a puncture) and now the season is over I have a long wait before the start of the 2022-23 season in September (#crossiscoming season starts on social media in August).

I just hope for better luck at the worlds next year, and a dryer course.

It’s a regular occurrence in modern life – where a trade name becomes so commonplace it hijacks the product group or activity for which it was created and turns into a vowel. 

We’ve all done the “Hoovering” and when we want to search something online we’ll Google it. A brand will become so established we instantly recognise what someone is talking about when they use the term. 

In the world of large format print, clients and printers have adopted the term Foamex when referring to rigid foam PVC. It isn’t a brand name but a quick “Google” will bring up dozens of company’s advertising printing and converting services for Foamex. 

Trouble is, there is a product (made by 3A Composites) called Foam-X – a display board with a soft foam core and paper face material. Its light weight makes it great for short term interior signage such as hanging signs, but not for more permanent applications. Ironically 3A make two of the leading rigid foam board ranges in the UK – Foamalite and Forex, neither of which have been adopted as a means of describing rigid foam PVC. 

Now imagine a customer has called a printer wanting some boards: 

Printer: OK, and what sort of material do your boards need to be constructed from? 
Customer: 5mm Foamex please? 
Printer: 5mm Foam-X? 
Customer: Yes, 5mm Foamex 
Printer: Great, the price will be £### 

Using a brand name to describe a product group is usually done without any potential pitfalls. In the instance of rigid foam boards we have a word that’s evolved without any direct link to a brand and, phonetically at least, is the same as a brand name from a different product group.  

The industry seems to be comfortable with this arrangement, but the aforementioned pitfall is there lurking in the background. Indeed, a former employer once fell foul of this conundrum in the way described above. The client (on the phone) asked for Foamex (rigid foam) and the estimator quoted for Foam-X (soft foam). The job went ahead, was delivered, then reprinted on the intended material. A genuine misunderstanding for which the client (naturally) found the printer to be at fault and insisted they pick up the bill. 

The moral of this story? Well, if you were to ask me, I would advise using the term “rigid foam PVC” instead of Foamex, and “soft foam display board” instead of Foam-X. You could argue the use of Foam-X is justified – the product exists after all, but the term Foamex has become so endemic there would always be a risk of confusion.