Words: Rod Fountain

If Cyclocross is a winter sport then by now all the race tape and poles should have been collected, the coffee cups binned and the cowbells put on the shelf until the local pub announces they’re screening the Tour de France.

Fields and parks should no longer be racetracks, Sundays are yours again and there’s a really nice CX bike or two buried in your shed waiting for autumn to roll around again.

Really though?

Does anyone really only use his or her cyclocross bike during ‘the season?’ In Molly Hurford’s excellent book Mud, Snow and Cyclocross, she is quick to dispense with the idea that people these days only ride cyclocross by way of staying fit when the weather’s too shitty for riding a road bike. Coming from a purely mountain bike and racing BMX background the idea of the weather being ‘too shitty’ to ride in doesn’t really hold any, erm, water. So I find myself reaching for the Jake when, God forbid, it’s quite a nice day and I’ve got more than just an hour or two to throw at riding. Anyway I feel I’ve earned it, all those months slogging through slush and mud would surely have been a waste of time if I couldn’t then see how fast the Jake could go in the dry (terrifyingly fast as it happens).

Rod’s garage.

By riding ‘out of season’ I’ve fallen in love with both the bike and the sport even more. Skiing’s a winter sport, not cyclocross. I can’t help but agree with Bikesnob, the acerbic New York blogger who says that riders who pigeonhole themselves “are just a cleverly worded advert away from leaving bikes behind in search of the next big thing”. But what do you do on a cyclocross bike when you’re not training for the long winter series? Maybe my lack of experience in the world of cyclocross and lifelong lack of interest in road bikes is actually a good thing in this case because surely the answer is that you just ride it.

With no more races to enter, that I know of at least, the self inflicted pressure to get fit enough to bust into the top 10 has faded and made room for just going out for a ride and hunting out trouble. In a previous Jake Diary I wrote about the commute and how having the Jake made it infinitely more fun. However, despite scaring myself and grinning a lot I was always thinking how much fitter I was getting and of the benefits come race day.

The big experiment

With racing over I’m now just waiting and riding for fun and inevitably my thoughts turned to wondering how the Jake would go on the mountain bike trails I regularly roll my 140mm Carbon Lapierre Zesty over. Heading out for the playground of the Surrey Hills one sunny winter Sunday I dropped both seats in the car to squeeze Jake in alongside the Zesty, just as they are in my basement. The result was a disaster but I learned a lot. It’s a bit like in Ghostbusters when Dr Egon Spengler warns the others not to “cross the streams” of their…whatever those things they use to catch ghosts with are called. When asked why, Spengler replies, “Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping and every molecule in your body exploding”. Riding the Jake down one of my favourite Mountain bike trails felt like that because crossing the streams of cyclocross and mountain biking is just daft; chalk and cheese, day and night.

The result was a disaster but I learned a lot. It’s a bit like in Ghostbusters when Dr Egon Spengler warns the others not to “cross the streams”

After writing about cyclocross for the ‘ardcore Dirt Mountain Bike Magazine, both myself and Steve Walker, my team mate, were given a little insight into what life must have been like for Salman Rushdie after he published ‘The Satanic Verses’ and had a fatwa declared on him by some Iranian Muslims. I stand by the Dirt feature, as does Steve, because we weren’t trying to coerce anyone into abandoning mountain bikes, just saying that cyclocross is a very, very different, but oddly fun, way to spend time on a bike in the dirt. The Dirt forum went wild with (mainly derisive) comments, but to their credit lots of people said ‘it’s all just bikes on dirt so it’s got to be good, right?’ Bless ‘em, but even they missed the point (though I appreciated their support).

I conclude… 

Cyclocross is nothing like mountain biking, and both are better for it. It’s nothing like road riding either, though I’ve never done it and so had to poll my mates who exclusively ride road. Cyclocross is just a branch, and a small one in the UK, of the cycling tree and if you’re open-minded enough to give it a try then you might find that you love it.

MTB or CX bike…?

Or, like the Canadian mountain bike photographer Grant Robinson (an ex-Team Kona XC rider from way back), who I’m proud to call a friend, you might come to this very different but insightful conclusion: “I hate CX. Did two races years ago and can’t think of anything worse. It’s everything I hate about bike riding. Mud, cold, wet, and you have to get off an’ push all the time. Screw that. They had one here (in British Columbia) two weekends ago and there was about 4 inches of snow. The worst thing I’ve ever seen. But don’t listen to me: you should shred it if you like it!”

I’ve now written a fair few words about cyclocross and the love I’ve found for the sport, the people involved and most of all the Jake. But I could’ve saved myself, and you, a lot of time by just writing the last line of Grant’s e.mail and blowing it up to 96 point type because it cuts through all the cycling territoriality and weirdness about what you’re ‘into’.

Don’t listen to me: you should shred it if you like it!

Rod Fountain. Thanks for the tales, Rod.

Rod introduced his new-found affliction to mud, ruts and bike carrying last week in the first of his Jake Diaries, check it out here.

Fish out of water? Nope, he’s loving it. But someone needs to get Rod Fountain some better cyclocross attire!

Jake Diaries part two: The Big Race.

Words by Rod Fountain
All photos by Angus Muir

Lining up at round 3 of the Rapha Supercross event at London’s Ally Pally I searched for a reference point to make it somehow familiar and vaguely interesting.In terms of scale it was like a World Cup with an estimated 6000 people turning up to watch God knows what but that’s as far as I got with comparisons to MTB.

There were no other flat pedals, no other piss-pot/goggles combo and definitely no other knee pads, which I found odd…

There were no other flat pedals, no other piss-pot/goggles combo and definitely no other knee pads, which I found odd because I’d spent most of the previous day failing to keep the bike upright on the grass slopes of South London parks, in the process making mine look pretty second hand. Looking around, I was the one who turned up to a dinner party in fancy dress but I wasn’t trying to make a statement; I just didn’t own any ‘cross’ gear or knew if any existed.

Rod having an other-worldly experience; that is, riding uphill for the first time ever.

I was also at the back of a grid of over 100 riders with no solitary start hut in which to collect my thoughts and no attention focussing beeps. It all started without warning and I was swept along at the arse-end of a rolling triangle that funnelled straight into a climb. This was unfamiliar but not as unfamiliar as the fact I was enjoying being surrounded on the steep, greasy climb and wondering if I could get between the bloke in front and the taped post before the hairpin marking the start of the first descent. I couldn’t but within seconds it dawned on me that I was racing; not against a clock, an iPhone App or a mate but against over 100 others in more suitable clothing, proper pedals and way more experience.

It’s the taking part that counts. Not for Rod though, he thoroughly enjoyed the elbow-to-elbow racing action and can’t wait for the next race.

By the end of the first descent I’d made up all the places I’d lost on the climb and was steeled with a determination to hold off as many crossers as possible over the flats and climbs ahead until the next glorious singletrack(ish), place gaining, descent through a wood. And so over 7 transformative laps I became completely absorbed in this insanely skilful game of attack and defend and clawed back places to bag 29^th out of 75 in my category.

And so over 7 transformative laps I became completely absorbed in this insanely skilful game of attack and defend and clawed back places to bag 29^th out of 75 in my category.

I’d ‘got it’ and also worked out cyclocross races are won by people who can do two things really well: pedal for an hour at the edge of puking and wring the neck of a rigid bike on skinny tyres down fast, greasy, often off-camber descents. Just being good at one of these things had given me a result I was happy with and so what happened next would be pivotal: would I box up the Jake and send it back to Ben at Kona as intended or get fitter and race again in league events which I’d just found out happen all over the country every single weekend in winter? Walking through the pits I saw Angus Muir, the snapper covering the London round for Dirt Magazine, who’d been reviewing his shots.  “I thought you said this was going to be shit” he said. “So what’s with the village idiot grin you’ve got in all my shots?”

One happy competitor. Will he be clipped-in next time though?

 “I thought you said this was going to be shit” he said. “So what’s with the village idiot grin you’ve got in all my shots?”

48 hours earlier a box with ‘Kona’ stamped on the side had arrived at my house as I ate breakfast. Shovelling in eggs I stared at the box for a bit before half heartedly hacking at it with my buttery table knife because I knew what was in it. From a pretty low starting point my enthusiasm took a nose dive when I pulled out the Kona Jake, a road bike to my mountain bike’s eyes. But that was Friday, and here I was now ‘on any Sunday’… That bike is never going back in the box.

Thank you kindly to Kona World for supplying the Jake cyclocross bike and giving Rod a new passion!

For the last five years Rod has been a columnist and features writer for Dirt Magazine; a title that, until recently, has always favoured gravity over pedalling. However… In the last issue of Dirt (issue 130), the editorial content crossed borders previously unknown – Rod and Steve ‘The Butcher’ Walker (another of the magazine’s contributors) raced a cyclocross event, a feature which caused much debate and contention among readers.

Deemed ‘not rad enough’ (or something along those lines) for Dirt, Rod has now jumped ship with his cyclocross banditry and will be joining us here at Bike Magic as he explores an affliction that he never before knew; a desire to pedal, to train and to ride up hills.

We’ll leave the talking to Rod.

Jake Diaries entry 1 by Rod Fountain:

Cyclocross was never meant to happen to me but it just has and I think I’m stuck with it.

Until very recently I thought fun on bikes was pushing to the top of a trail or downhill track and pinning it back down, wheels on the ground as little as possible and barely pedalling until nightfall, a broken bike or splintered bones forced me home (or to A&E).

The crew over at Dirt Mag weren’t entirely convinced if cyclocross could ever be ‘rad’ enough, but anyone who’s tried it (now including Rod) will most probably agree that it takes quite something to win one of those races. Not sure about the goggles look, Rod… Pic by Angus Muir

Before cyclocross got its muddy claws into me the only real pedalling I did was commuting on my singlespeed Kona Unit: a 20 mile slog to endure rather than enjoy. As a writer for Dirt Magazine, riding down hills dominates my cycling life and I’ve been lucky enough to ride (OK, free-wheel) and race some lovely bikes down some even lovelier mountains. I can put in a solid race result and am comfortable in my cycling skin, although a skinsuit may be pushing it… After a lifetime of riding I thought my ideas about bikes and riding were set in a stone with just three letters carved into it: M.T.B.

After a lifetime of riding I thought my ideas about bikes and riding were set in a stone with just three letters carved into it: M.T.B.

The editor of Dirt occasionally throws some irresistible jobs my way which I don’t need to think twice about accepting, but racing cyclocross in late October in a London park wasn’t one of them…until he reminded me about the set of demo wheels he’d just dispatched to me after I’d mentioned that mine weren’t round anymore (since coming up short over a road-gap in the Forest of Dean). I’m not proud to admit that I pleaded, desperately at times, that featuring cyclocross in the magazine would offend the gravity slaves, that the bikes were nothing like downhill or enduro bikes and that seeing one in Dirt wasn’t appropriate. He told me to let him worry about that and e-mailed the brief which said: ‘Get muddy and work out if a cyclocross bike is just an un-evolved mountain bike’. At that point I wished I’d just bought my own set of wheels.

Rod in an altogether more familiar environment, tearing down a hill. Rod also loves riding his 29er and thankfully has an open mind to all cycling disciplines. Pic: Grant Robinson

The story of the cold, wet October day which unexpectedly changed my ideas about fun on bikes is in the current copy of Dirt (issue 130). What it doesn’t explain is why my carbon full suss’, my 4X bike and my 29er are now in the basement and why a cyclocross bike, the kind of bike I’ve always thought was pointless, leans on a radiator in the hallway, nose pointing at the door and only getting to rest when I do.

What it doesn’t explain is why my carbon full suss’, my 4X bike and my 29er are now in the basement…

I still don’t know why this has happened or how it’s all going to pan out so over the next couple of months I’ll be treating this little corner as a confessional booth in which to lay bare the occasionally intimate and always dirty details of how a committed downhiller has found a new love between the tape.

Thanks to Kona World for supplying Rod with the newest love in his life and for opening his mind to the world outside downhill.