Book of Chad

From @dutchcanadacx, inspired by Chad’s race reports!

Here is a short story of my six-year journey to get to the start-line of the 40-44 Masters UCI World Cyclocross Champs in Hamburg after suffering from whiplash for five years. By posting it on Chad’s blog my hope is that it gets some decent circulation and a few #westcoast masters racers might be inspired for future Worlds attempts!

I’ve got a present from Hamburg for the next Masters racer from Cross on the Rock (“COTR”) or Lower Mainland CX (“LMCX”) to book a ticket to Worlds!

I’ve tried my best to condense what is a six-year story into a short write up. More than half the write up is on my World’s experience.

A few terms are defined (e.g. Zone 2 = “Z2”) for my non-racer friends and family so bear with that!

How I got into Cross.

The original Dutchman in the Dutch Canadian CX team Hugo got me into cross. We met through work and every year Hugo would pump me up to do the annual Vanier CX race in September and educate me in the ways of Modder and the sanctity of cyclocross. He cast a spell on me!

I’ve always mountain biked (“MTB”) and really got back into MTB from 2012-2018 when enduro took off and I’ve got at least 40 fun enduro races under my belt mostly from the bi-weekly summer NSMBA ‘Fiver’ enduro races. This is important context for how I was able to adapt to cross so quick.

I think I raced Vanier CX in 2015 and 2016 on my commuter. The first year with fenders and a rack to some awesome heckles.

In 2017 traded my road bike for a cross bike and was super stoked to race my first full fall of CX. Unfortunately, I raced Vanier CX in late September (biggest race on the coast), and then got in a not-at-fault car accident one week later in October, which led to battling recurring whiplash symptoms for next FIVE years.

FIVE years. That is the length of your time in High School.

I never raced CX again in the fall of 2017. The whiplash stayed.  

The crash that led to 5+ years of pain. It doesn’t look that bad but my Van was heavy (+3500 lbs) and I instinctually swerved up onto the median to avoid a more head-on direct impact.

2018-2022, Cyclocross in Pain

In 2018 I managed to finish most local CX races, but always with lots of nagging of pain. I couldn’t really “train” at all but would always ride really punchy in like Zone 4/5 (this is basically riding at 80-90% intensity) no matter what bike I was on – cross, commuter or MTB. I was limited to like 45-60 minutes on the bike.

In 2019 I raced the full intermediate LMCX season through ongoing whiplash pain and was the LMCX intermediate men ‘sandbagger’ points champ on all high intensity, short duration Zone 4/5 training similar to 2018. In 2019 I did MFG Woodland Park CX race in Seattle and finished 14^th in Cat 3 men 35+. This is a key benchmark I’ll reference below.

The 2020 CX season was covid cancelled but I made a sweet CX/Underbiking self-filmed edit that winter. Did you see it? #ewoks

For 2021 hit the big Forty, becoming a baby-master and went from Masters B to A by end of the LMCX season all Zone 4/5 training still. The whiplash was always there waiting to resurface and it did pretty much weekly.

In 2022 the whiplash was starting to improve and I realized I knew NOTHING about how to actually train for cyclocross. I Instagram-messaged Jake Rodgers one day in the 2022 summer on a whim asking about CX coaches and he recommended Michael van den Ham.  I contacted Michael and signed up for his Cycle Smart 6-month CX training program for 2022 pretty late. I think we started for August 1^st, 2022. I had no ‘base’ training for the 2022 CX season before that.

Michael probably rolled his eyes a bit at how green I was and told me the bulk of training was to be in the “endurance” zone and that I’d need a Heart Rate (“HR”) monitor. What? I’d never thought of my HR my whole life (I’m 41 at this point LOL). He got me to do a 3-hour endurance ride and I went from Downtown to the Seymour Dam and back looking at my watch the whole time trying to keep my HR under 136 crawling up the endless rolling climbs.

I had literally never ridden my bike that slow in my life. This was SO BORING. This is “cycling” training?

So at this point I’m 15 months out from my Masters CX worlds race and had never actually done endurance (i.e. Zone 2) training before in my life. Some “cyclist”.

The whiplash was manageable in 2022 and I raced 10 CX races on the coast through some fall flare ups. I was keen. Pent up desire! The highlight was a 2^nd at the competition-light Maple Ridge Pumpkin Cross in the atmospheric river when we were cycling through two-foot deep puddles for MINUTES of each lap.

I finished up 2022 with a 16^th at Canadian CX Nationals more than six minutes behind Craig Ritchey and maybe a 10^th at the Bear Crossing Grand Prix race the day after. I was chasing Chad for both races. In lap 1 of Nationals Chad pulled off the greatest inside two-wheel slide pass I have ever witnessed on me and road away! This needs to be documented.

2022 Pumpkin Cross in the atmospheric river deluge. I picked this shot from my 2022 season as I’ve had my best CX races in the most heinous weather conditions. Foreshadowing for Worlds! Note the super high-rise drop bars I rode from 2017-2022 with the whiplash. Photo: Tammy Brimmer

For most of October 2017 through 2022, 90% of the time my right shoulder rotator cuff musculature was “on-fire” clamped down as reaction to any athletic activity. I was in a right-hand drive Delica Van for the accident and the seat belt went over my right shoulder (not the left like normal cars). Any whiplash symptoms in my spine would always reverberate through the right shoulder musculature. The best way to explain it was that it was a nervous system pattern and my body kept repeating the same pattern. 2023 was the first year my shoulder finally stayed mostly relaxed.

In December of 2022 I saw the GCN YouTube video on the 2022 UK Masters CX World ‘Amateur’ Championships. I had never heard of this Masters CX Worlds thing! Wait – anyone can enter? Why can’t I do it next year?

Maybe 2023 is the “year of cross” for me as 2023 Master’s Worlds happens one week after Victoria Nationals which are on the West Coast again.

“The last five years sucked. Fuck it, let’s do it! Why not?“

A crazy idea was born almost instantly with that simple thought.

In December 2022 I also started reading about Zone 2 (“Z2”) heart rate training and got fully on board with the research.

2023 Base Training

My basic 2023 strategy was to, “make it to December in top shape without burning out by the late summer or early fall”. This meant I’d mostly ride Z2 rides early in the year while pairing that with my usual schedule of fun MTB races in the spring and early summer. I made a decision to ride in all of the mostly-MTB spring races without any specific race/interval training just for “fun”. Type II MTB fun!

2023 threw me another wrench entirely. Out of something like the 40 weeks ending October 9^th, I was bed-ridden sick for FOUR of those 40 weeks – 10% of the time! I maybe had Covid twice (who knows) and the flu once and the 2022 holiday season virus was the absolute worst as I laid in bed all Christmas and New years when I was in desperate need of a real break. In January 2023 I was already run down.

Bedridden rick for the first week of July in peak summer! Had to be Covid although we couldn’t confirm with tests.

My Z2 experiment started on January 14^th and I tracked 150 hours of pure Z2 training through September 18^th in my iPhone notes. This is just road, gravel or MTB rides where I would go out and try to stay in Z2 most of the time and includes a bunch of vacation mountain biking.

I could already feel the Z2 training helping specifically during the Bear Mountain XC race and Whistler Back Forty in May and June. I did hardly any interval training or even mountain biking going into these events but found myself riding uphill faster than usual and feeling less exhausted in the final 10% of the race and during recovery. So far so good.

Michael and Kiera (his wife) had just had their first child and he was likely pretty overwhelmed with life. I emailed him a bunch and we connected a few times at local races but it was unclear if he had time to coach me with his new Dad duties but finally in late June we kicked off the CX training plan similar to 2022, but with a plan to hold back on any intensity training until the fall in order to peak for Worlds. This was a key part of the process in place.

The build up to the CX season was ton of Z2.  Z2 is not everything though. The sporadic weight lifting sessions I managed to squeeze in, and a bunch of core/imbalance work where I followed Tom Danielson’s “Core Advantage for Cyclists” routines throughout the year were crucial for me – especially as a giant rider (6”3 with stratospheric 36” inseam). This core work was a lot more than just abs. I added a huge focus on my glutes as they had been ignored from decades of climbing with my hamstrings with the classic 73 degree seat angle.  

For me, all this core and weight work was just as important as cycling training.

Strava year in review. All activities including most core and weight sessions are here. The path to Worlds was made in May-to-August spinning around in the sun. 

When I finally got a power meter up and running at the end of August I managed to pull off a 5 minute and 20 minute FTP test just a week before my first scheduled race – COTR Cumberland. This was my only intensity all summer. My power was pretty good.

2023 Fall CX Season

My season started with COTR Cumberland. I got a random front row call up (I’ve never been close in all my previous COTR races!) and took advantage to get the holeshot into the first turn before settling into a pretty intense pace following a few others. I think Graham Cocksedge finally passed me on lap 2, Norm Thibault on lap 3 and I managed to get reeled in by a few more but held on for 8^th, only 60 seconds behind the local legend Graham! This was a tech course where the gaps where never going to be huge but only 60 seconds behind Graham on zero pre-season interval training was insane! The confidence was high.

On the ferry ride home, Master’s Worlds registration opens for international riders and I sign up! I’m stoked! I’ve still only revealed my plan to Michael and my lady at this point.

Cross-eyed at MFG Starcrossed. CX racing at night around an outdoor velodrome! Photo: Dennis Crane

My next race I tried was MFG Starcrossed in Redmond, WA. I signed up for the “Masters Category 1 40-49” race and started right behind the local legend Jake Rodgers in his BC Champion jersey. I followed Jake through the first couple turns and then let him and couple really fast guys go on lap 1. At this point I was on my own, and it remained that way for most of the race. When I saw the number of laps left after the third lap I definitely started pacing for a “really long cyclocross race”. In the end I finished up 8^th/15 and raced 10 laps for 62 minutes. The two key takeaways here were that:

1. After 62 minutes compared to Jake I was only 2 minutes and 50 seconds behind him or 4.7% Jake is legend so this small margin was insane. I had never been that close to him!
2. I finished 8^th in Masters Cat 1 40-49 in 2023 against the best from Seattle. Back in 2019 I could only finish 14^th in Cat 3 men 35+ at MFG Woodland park. Night and day improvement.

I was on track for World’s baby! The Zone 2 worked! I just needed to keep healthy and avoid burnout for the rest of the fall.

This was foreshadowing as I would get sick a week later which would affect me for the next month…

3 or 4 days before Vanier CX in Vancouver I came down with a virus. It was sort-of on again, off again so I tried to take the start at Vanier but after a rear tire slide out on lap 1, followed immediately by a second crash as I rode into a marking stick trying to bash my bent lever straight while still riding,  I drop out of the race right away. Clearly I shouldn’t have started!

I love the COTR Bowen Park race so I rested all week despite feeling 50-50 and took the start there 8 days later but faded hard on lap 3 and absolutely limped home the last two laps. Not recovered yet.  

The week after that I did Thrashers Coquitlam CX and finished 11^th/14 and absolutely hit a wall for the last two laps. I felt great for the first 60%, then was flat, then felt like I almost bonked on the last lap. It wasn’t a glycogen bonk I don’t think, my body was just still angry at me.  

The next race was SORCE Junkyard CX which I also LOVE and felt like I was almost fully recovered for this. I had one of my best starts ever and rode with Jake Rodgers and Andrew Pinfold (ex-pro cyclist, albeit 15 years ago) for a half lap and then was slowly reeled in by others. 10^th/16 but only 90 seconds off the top 5 and I knew I wasn’t back at full strength. Good sign.  

Now it’s October 29^th and the next race is Local Ride Pumpkin Cross where I redeem my local LMCX season with a 6^th/12 after riding with 4^th and 5^th Michael and Ryan for 35 minutes before fading slightly. I’m back though and frankly a bit relieved as was getting worried the virus jeopardized my World’s plan.

At this point it is important to highlight that the saviour of Lower Mainland cyclocross Drew scheduled a STACKED schedule for fall 2023. Starting with Vanier on October 1^st, I was racing every weekend through November 12^th, followed by BC Champs the next weekend, Canadian Nationals the weekend after in Victoria, then Worlds 8 days after Nationals. The last three races I called the ‘Trifecta’.

The next LMCX race is the competition-light Thrashers Eagle Mountain mud-fest where I finish 4^th of 9^th and lost the coveted 3^rd podium spot battle with Ryan due to too many self-imposed mud crashes. Ryan was on fire in November this year!

The week after this I loaded a lot of riding as one of last big training blocks going into the Trifecta. The result of this is that I’m very, very tired for the last LCMX race and finish 10^th/12 way off my recent pace. It doesn’t phase me in the slightest as I could feel dead legs on lap 1 and had bigger goals on the horizon.

BCs and Nationals

The next week I made sure to be super-duper rested going into BCs to get a confidence-boosting race. I feel super fresh for the mudder super course in Chilliwack custom designed by Michael and I have an awesome race. I was also telling myself I would have a great race all week!

I’m flying off the start and just behind Scott Mitchell and Matt Hornland who I know are another level above me. One of them makes an error on the uphill log-hop and I’m in front of at least Matt for a few turns on lap 1 before Matt sprints past me. I then trade leads with Scott Mitchell for like the first 3 laps. Lindsay (Chad’s wife) is screaming at me every lap by the pits that I’m doing awesome (don’t tell Chad LOL).

I make two mistakes all race and with one I’m bogged down in the uphill mud after the log-hop doing the uphill strider paddle riding my top tube as Scott rides away on lap 4. The rest of the race I’m in no-man’s land and can tell from my HR data after that I lulled without any competition. Scott has a killer last few laps and ends up passing Matt for 4^th and put 70 seconds into me in the end. My lull probably counts for 30 of those 70 seconds and then I realize after the race I’m only 35 seconds behind Matt Hornland which is the closest ever for me. I know Matt is in full on #dadlife now so I try not read into it too much but I’m fully on track for Worlds. I’ve never been this fast on a CX bike! I’m 6^th of 14 in 35-44 men in the end.

Can you even believe this chain kept falling off at Nationals?

Victoria Nationals ends up being a gong show race for me between some friendly crashes (with Chad 😊), self-imposed crashes and my chain coming off my chainring twice from mud build up. I was in like 10/11th before disaster struck on lap 1. I ended up 17^th of 25, but I can look at my lap times and count 2 minutes given-up to silly crashes and mechanicals (I literally had to wipe mud off my chainring to get my chain back on twice), and can infer a ‘hypothetical’ finish in 10^th based on correcting my time for that 2 minutes and my gap to Matt Hornland from BCs one week before. I think a 10^th would have been achievable and that would put me 7% behind 1^st/2^nd Raph and Craig Ritchey, the fastest two racers in Canada in my age group.

In 2022, on the same course in Victoria, same race time, same competition, I was 12% behind Craig Ritchey.

I had no time to dwell, I had booked a ferry home a few hours after the race and had to pack for Hamburg! I didn’t care one iota about my Nats result. I had confirmed I was in bike shape of my life around BCs and started leaking my Worlds secret to a few fellow riders finally. Tractor Tom heard the earliest.

4.5 days in Hamburg Before the Big Show

I flew out to Hamburg on the Monday after Nationals via Frankfurt.

Northern Germany was covered with snow on the flight in. Maybe 5-10cm fell on their Monday night.

My bike was stuck at Frankfurt airport for 24 hours. I saw Jean-Francois Blais (Canadian Pan-Am CX Champ and racing 50-54 men) at the Hamburg airport late Tuesday and he had both his bikes! He also has Air Canada Elite status.

The venue getting plowed from the snowfall on Tuesday! #letitsnow

By the time I get settled at my hotel late Tuesday I’m spent from talking to baggage claim and waiting an extra connector flight for my other checked bag.

On Wednesday morning I do a gentle run and then drop in at a fitness studio to do a one-hour Z2 ride on a nice spinning bike in my casual shorts I packed for the Sicily vacation leg of my trip. Most of my bike gear was in my bike box! Later I train back to the airport, grab my bike box, train back, build it up, find dinner, figure out where I can eat for the week in the nearby Hipster district and it’s a full day figuring out Germany and trying my horribly pronounced Deutsch – Spitze!

Thursday is the only pre-ride window where all World’s participants can lap the course. The venue is about 8km of totally flat riding from my hotel. It is cold as hell and I dress for being outside for hours and have winter tights with winter NF pants overtop on my legs. I ride there which is my first experience on Northern Europe bike routes built into the sidewalk. At the base of the park I meet an American living in Hamburg Jeremy who shows me the fun way through the park to the venue and we’re slipping and sliding on snowy trails!  For the open pre-ride we have a full-on snow course. No mud, not a lot of dirt.

Friday was a full rest day and I ate a ton after being outside so long the day before. I napped for an hour, but set an alarm for the nap as I didn’t want to screw up my time zone adaptation (+9 hours). Melatonin is key here.

On Saturday my lady arrived to cheer me on. I train out to the airport to meet her and help her back to the hostel after 16+ hours of travel for her. When we came back I basically leave my lady to recover from travel and head out on the train with my bike to about 1km from the venue for the final 30 minute pre-ride window before my race at 11:30am on Sunday.  

Riding the train to Saturday afternoon practice in full winter mode. My hotel was right above the intersection of 3 urban train lines.

So the tech-section of the course late Saturday was completely different than the first pre-ride. It turned into a mud-fest from the day’s races at around 0 degrees. The technical off camber looping downhill was not rideable from the mud. My bike got real dirty and the organizers never turned on the neutral bike wash as advertised with the sub-zero temperatures. Uh oh.

I ran into a shivering JF who was hanging out after his Saturday race and congratulated him on his huge ride where he started with number #107 (seeded to 107^th) but rode up 11^th place. In 2022 he started #102 at worlds and rode up to 3^rd! These are the two of the most epic cyclocross rides I have ever heard of!

JF offered up his bike wash at his AirBnB only a 10-minute ride from the venue. I blindly followed my Garmin and get sent North instead of South. When I realize my error I hop a train which lets me off like 400m from his place. I get a custom bike wash from the Pan-Am champ and an espresso from his AirBnB machine he mentioned about five times previously! The man likes his coffee! After that I’m back on the train home to prep for my race the next day.

Custom emergency bike wash from the Pan Am Champ JF on Saturday night! What a champ! #Canada

There were so many things to prep Saturday evening and once I’ve got my bike, food and gear dialed for the morning and my lady and I have grabbed dinner, I’m in bed at 9:15 but my head is spinning. I slept okay. Not great, but my sleep the night before was awesome.  

Race Day!

On Saturday morning we had a strict schedule to train to JFs in the morning, but via changing trains in largest transfer station in West Hamburg. We missed the first connection as couldn’t find the transfer platform as the station is huge (both urban and long-distance train platforms). 10 minutes lost.

We arrived at JF’s where he meets my lady and I’m served up another espresso. I use JF’s fancy auto-pressure set pump to set my leaky-valve rear tire to 28 psi. It maybe leaked to 26 psi by the time I closed it, and I never touched it again. Only the night before the valve started leaking out of nowhere when unscrewed and I didn’t bring a spare. Front at 22 psi ready to go! I normally would have run 24 psi in rear but erred a bit high to be safe. I don’t actually know what I ran in the rear but it was close enough by touch.

With about 75 minutes to go I rode away from JFs and spun outside, jogged, practiced remounts and did lots of snow turns for 30 mins to warm up. Two pairs of pants. After that I headed to the warming tent to prep.

Race start is 11:30 am. I changed into my race kit at 11 am which included a merino shirt with a jersey overtop, and a really thin toque. It was around zero degrees outside. I had two gels left I brought from Canada and at the last minute I took one at 11:10 and then one at 11:20 as we’d be racing through my typical lunch. At 11:15 I was out of the tent with one full sprint uphill on the starting straight and into call-up waiting.

The most important number pin I’ll ever do.

I lucked out and got randomly seeded to a 17^th start position which ended up being 2^nd row as I guess they stacked us 10-wide. Right before call-ups started I saw André Greipel – the 11 time Tour de France stage winner roll up through all the racers towards the back of the waiting area. André showed up on the start list in the last week and was seeded first for a few days before getting seeded to last starting place as he should! This is supposed to the be the amateur world champs – the guy is legend and was still a pro only like 2 years ago!

I looked at this photographer’s photostream and this is André Greipel about halfway through lap 1. At this point I am still ahead of him so I included this photo to document that I am in an elite group of riders on the planet who have actually been in front of André in a bike race! He finishes 5^th in the end. Photo: Sports Photo Ireland

With 3 minutes to go on the line I adjusted my sleeve and ripped a hole in the elbow-pit of my 10+ year old merino base layer but was unphased. With two minutes to go I was psyching myself up harder than I ever had before!  

“No one else has been through what you have to get to this start line”.

I was ready to battle! I deserved to be here!

My lady was the designated iPhone camera operator. She is “challenged” with directions to put it lightly and got on the train the wrong way from JFs, got off after a stop realizing her error and hired an Uber to the venue and apparently ran across the parking lot to see me go around the first turn!

11:30 am. Go!

I had a great start and followed the rider directly in front of me. The start was concrete, downhill for about 300 metres and I actually spun out of gears on the descent from my small front chainring. This probably also means we hit 50 km/h on the start straight. Everyone then brakes down to a crawl for a 180 degree icy turn.

I ended up on the left of the starting straight right next to the fence so I yelled “Links Links!” (Phonetically “Leahks Leahks” – Left Left!) in Deutsch to one rider so he didn’t ride me into the fence. I ended up inside into the first turn and then outside into the second turn which was maybe the fastest combination in the end. I looked up and I was maybe anywhere from 10^th to 13^th out of the second turn!

I am pretty sure this lap 1, second turn, where I am in ~10^th-13^th ! Photo: Sports Photo Ireland

The lap went for about 2 minutes mostly in single file before the first uphill-to-off camber tech section. In order to be safe as soon as I even sniffed a traffic jam in front I hopped off my bike and ran. All the other riders in front and behind seemed to ride but I definitely passed one more rider with this move.

I swear this is Lap 1, start of the tech section, and I hopped off the bike just seconds after this shot. If not, it is lap 2 and if gives you a sense of the competition – 6 riders separated by 10 seconds! Photo: Sports Photo Ireland

I’m pretty sure I descended the tech descent the first time following the lead of the riders in front. It went from super-mud last afternoon to frozen ruts. In the end there was no mud for our race, it was a night and day change to the track of the three times I rode it.

I was in a primo position coming out of the tech descent and I hadn’t been passed yet. I started to ride what I thought was a very fast pace for me and then riders started flying by on the straights. The threshold power of first 20 riders was insane!

Lap 1 tech descent carnage! I looked at this photo like 10 times on Instagram before I realized I’m hidden in the background (far left middle, leg way out). No idea this pile-up happened of course. What an epic capture! Photo: Tobias Szabo.

Griepel passed me first lap near the end, but I never saw him specifically.

I ended the first lap in 19^th, not that I knew it at the time. I wasn’t counting and continued to push and try to dial the slip-and-slide course.

The course had a huge scaffolding stair-to-flyover descent feature with like 30 stairs that was awesome to run/ride. I felt like I was double stepping the stairs like a boss, but so was everyone else. It was awesome to have this feature that is usually only reserved for pros in the big races!

There were two sets of barriers – regular (high) height and some low barriers followed by a climb.  I hopped the low barriers every time and seemed to have a little advantage here.

One section of the lap was near-ice for three consecutive turns and I slipped just a little the first 5 laps through but never lost time. You literally couldn’t pedal at all until the turns were completely finished or your rear wheel fishtailed. If you went to fast your front wheel slipped. Patience.

This turn had an apparent dirt berm which gave false confidence as I had a wicked slide here on lap 6 coming in too hot! Photo: Marcus Kaben

Except for the tech section and a couple short uphill sprints on concrete paths through the park, the entire course was still pretty much snow with a narrow singletrack ribbon of dirt/ice for the race line.

I kept hammering as fast as I could for the first two laps but was aware that tons of riders had passed me but I ignored this and focused on my own race. I knew from prior races we were in for a 7 lap and ~50 minute race so didn’t look at the laps left until my fourth time past the start line to confirm there were 3 laps remaining. 3 laps seemed like nothing at that point. This was a good mental strategy for me as I never thought of pacing.

Note the line of riders behind me riding down the flyover in background. I tried several different lines on this turn and ended up sticking with the “Sam Hill Inside Line” in the soft snow as it seemed to have way better grip, and was more direct, than the brown race line. Photo: Sports Photo Ireland

My lady cheered like boss all race as she ran around the course. She made friends with other spectators who also yelled “Go Canada” that I remember hearing multiple times. When she told them we had come from Vancouver they said “Oh so far!” in strong German accents in response.

Something clicked during the race as I nailed all seven of my remounts after the high barriers without a thought. I never really think too much about where my pedal is but after leaping onto the seat I found the first pedal like clockwork and was back on the power near instantly. Seamless. This had never happened before in a race! Things were clicking!

On the last lap I saw rider take a line I never even saw after all this time under the flyover scaffolding. There were 2 lines through the scaffolding! Crazy I never saw what!

Now that I remember, my last lap was best lap from a technical perspective. Nailed every line. Only four seconds slower than lap 1! Trading positions with a few other riders all lap to the finish line. Done!

Spotted a photographer just seconds after the finish! Photo: Marcus Kaben

I roll past the finish and find a place to stop to appreciate what I just went through. It is a bit surreal knowing no other riders and not really trading any high fives like back at home. I wasn’t even sure who I was battling for the last lap in the end. My lady comes up cheering and films the afterglow.

When I let go of the handlebars I can feel the tip of both my pinky and ring fingers are completely numb. Zero feeling. I felt them getting cold on lap 1 but figured they warmed up with the intense riding. I spend the next few minutes shaking and moving my hands.

In the end I finish 32^nd of 59. Mid-pack at Masters Worlds on one year of real cycling training!

My only goal for the race was to give it my best shot and not get lapped. I accomplished both. It was supposed to be a life experience. I lucked out with a very special snow race!

I couldn’t be more satisfied and I really couldn’t be more proud. Anyone can come up with a goal, but I managed to find the motivation (and time!) to train towards that goal consciously for 11 months while juggling a professional life. I made it to the start line dialed and pretty rested and then pulled off a really great race in the end. No regrets.

Going to Worlds was a pretty audacious goal when I look back 12 months ago and the only way I had the courage to chase it is by literally thinking “Fuck it, why not, the last 5 years sucked” last December.

Six years in the making for this shot!

I can’t thank my lady enough for the emotional support over the last six years, for having the patience to let me spend a lot more time on the bike in 2023 to make this happen, and for delivering some quality race footage despite accidentally filming more than half the race clips in slo-motion mode!

Having the race right in the City of Hamburg made for an awesome event. We ate every night in the Hipster district or off the Reeperbahn (former Red Light district, now tourist hotspot) and took the train everywhere. Would totally do it again! Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris for a future Worlds?

If you read to the end, thank you and I hope you enjoyed my story!

I’d also like to give a big shout out to everyone and anyone who has helped put on an LMCX, VCXC, COTR, Cascade Cross, BC or Canadian Nationals or MFG Cyclocross race on the West Coast over the years. This list is too long but there is no cross on the coast without you!

Context on the race (for bike racing geeks)

The top 20 riders were fast. Even 20^th place was 4.5% faster than me in the end. Using my highly scientific comparative approach from Canadian Nationals, four of the top five male racers in 35-44 Nationals are over 40 and would be in the 40-44 category at Worlds and perhaps only these four Canadians would map into the top 20 of my race if they replicated their Canadian Nationals performance (they were >4.5% faster than me at Nationals with my time ‘normalized’). Most racers were from Northern Europe – the heartland of cycling and CX of course. I thought the snow would be an advantage for me with my #wetcoast MTB background and then I talked to one rider who joked, “This is the first snow race of the year”. They do this every year!

The top 2 riders were on another planet and came close to lapping me in the end. The winner, Mariusz Gil from Poland had raced Elite CX world cups as recently as 2015 and placed in the top 20 and 30 several times. He was also 40 at the bottom of the 40-44 bracket so maybe had a youthful advantage too.

There was only a 25 second gap between me in 32^nd and 26^th place. That’s 7 riders finishing every 3 seconds. In hindsight there was a pretty solid mid-pack battle.

We raced at about zero degrees. It was a punchy course where you sprinted and then completely stopped pedalling to steer cautiously through slippery turns, then sprinted again. I figured my average heart rate would be a bit lower because of the all the coasting but it was actually one of my lowest ever for a cyclocross race! 168 average with a max of only 175. At my best race of 2023 Cumberland in hot temperatures my HR averaged 176 with a max of 182. The low HR is surely a result of racing at the freezing point and the body pumping less blood to the skin to stay cool!