Opening Laps: Fabian’s CX Mid-Season Revue
Fabian is only in his second season of racing cyclocross and is already crushing it. He’s moved up to the Expert races, and … well we’ll let him tell you how it’s been going. Needless to say, we’re all impressed, and stoked to see him out there railing corners! Here’s what he has to say about the season so far:
Cyclocross has been here for a month now and it is definitely pretty fun and different than road. The bike I am riding this year is for sure nice and is making me a lot faster through the corners with the hydro disc breaks.
It started with the first Wednesday night cross club at Juan de Fuca, it was a beautiful sunny day and the course was really good, over 120 people were out that day, the big grassy field made it fast and everybody seemed to be having a lot of fun.
Right after that it was the first Cross On The Rock race at the Comox Lake Campground in Cumberland, a really fun criterium was part of the weekend on the Saturday before the race at the Waverly Hotel, lots of good costumes, fast cornering, good course (false start of the A field was hilarious), really good crash by a hockey player and good beer from the Cumberland Brewery made this opener really fun.
The race course at the next day was very “different” from what I’ve seen in my short time of bike racing, loose, lots of running, barrier finish and the campvibes were all over the place. I started at the back of the expert field, first race in this category, not going to lie, I was nervous. I wanted to finish top 10, stay at the front and not crash.
Made my way through the pack the first few laps, the running part was for sure the hardest but I ended up at the front in 7th place, making me feel a bit more confident for this season.
More Wednesday nighters throughout September helped everyone get their skills dialed for the next race in Ladysmith. The weather was pretty nice for this race, the course had 2 sand pits, one of them was pretty sketchy to ride for the expert field and the other one was a lot of fun. Broad Street had a lot of guys in the expert field this day and this was the first time I got to start at the front row of a cyclocross race, ever. Really fast start that shot us to the twisty section through the trees, pretty dusty and dry, saw a few crashes during the first lap or two but I don’t think anybody was badly hurt.
That first sandpit was definitely where the party was happening, I decided to run it so I wouldn’t crash, I definitely saw people on the ground there more than once that day.
After getting frustrated with the technical section I finished 10th, another good finish for my first season in this new field.
