Guelph Cycling Club is running a grass roots cyclo-cross event on Nov 2 for their members and others. For the second year in a row they’ve kindly invited us. Last year six or seven club members made the trip and had a blast. It’s a very easy going event and a great way to try cx. The course is fast and winds across fields and through some woods on a farm.
Below is the schedule. You can register here for $20, U13 are free but everyone has to pre-register.
11:00am Kids Race
11:30am CX Clinic
12:00pm Casual Race
1:00pm Faster Race
If you’ve had fun at the races this year or you’ve never tried cross but have always wanted to then this event is a great opportunity to have some fun.
Sagan and I were discussing racing at Baseball Cross vs Guelph. Guelph is closer and looks like fun…and from previous years Baseball Cross was never my favourite. So I think we’ll both go.
That was a really fun event. There were about 30 racers in the ‘faster race’ which meant lots of people to chase. The course was pretty diverse with some forest sections, some fast gravel sections, and lots of corners. They ~30cm barriers that were jump-able for those with more skill than I, and one climb that required brief dismount. It was fun for both beginners and challenging enough (at speed) for experts. A few of the corners were slippery and resulted in a few falls.
Great vibe, fun course, door prizes, and a relatively big and competitive field made for a great event. Unfortunately WCC has a pretty small contingent this year (I believe it was Andrew L, my son Sagan and myself).
Robin was definitely on-form today and took the win. Sagan enjoyed chasing him and ended in 2nd.
Robin definitely got some surprise cx form out of no where.
What tires are the boys thinking for nats? Going to be tricky with the conditions. Lots of snow this week. Saturday sunny but cold. Definitely frozen for am races with sun thaw in the pm.
Sunday looks awful. Not racing.
I have to race age 45-54 because age is of Dec 31 2026. Totally change my race planning kinda. Should just race elite with the low turnout. Top 6 is doable. .
Nationals will be interesting for sure. Watching the weather closely but they have snow now and it doesn’t look like it is going to disappear. The big question is going to be how soft it will get on Saturday afternoon with some sunshine.
My boys are (sadly) racing at the same time on Saturday and we only have 2 sets of muds. So they will either start on intermediates (Flandrien) or full mud (Limus) depending on the conditions. Their B bikes will be the opposite. Probably Flandrien if the ground is still frozen.
I would expect Tyler and Cody to be battle for the top of the podium in Elite, but after that a lot of the really fast guys are in U23 (Mike Comaniuk, Felix Leclair, Zander Woodford). CCN doesn’t easily show the full list of racers easily, but I’m sure you’d be very near the front.
The 45-54 still looks pretty fast with the Quebec guys (Aroussen Laflamme, Jean Francois Blais) and a handful from across Canada so hopefully you’d still have some competition.
I’m not racing on Saturday since it would interfere with prep for my sons. Considering Sunday but looking at the forecast I’m not sure I’d enjoy it (and would be near the very back).
