Here are our scheduled rides across March and April, aimed at giving you the skills you need to ride or race cyclocross! All of our rides are open to all riders regardless of skill level or previous experience, and the whole crew is super friendly and welcoming. Grab your bike and your mates and come on down!
Last week LTACX hosted our Bumper CX Skills Session. Tailored at introducing beginners to the essentials skills of cyclocross and a refresher for those with more experience, the 2021 session had great attendance and plenty of great learnings!
With practice on race starts, mounting and dismounting, cornering, uphill dismounts, close quarters riding and essential handup practice, everyone had something to work on!
Check out our video of the session:
Interested to try cyclocross, but not sure where to start? We’ve got the answer!
Before the Australian 2021 cyclocross season gets started, Let’s Talk About CX will be hosting a Come and Try Cyclocross Day on the morning of Saturday March 27th. It'll be held from 9am-12pm, starting from Guide Dogs Victoria in Kew.
You can see all the details of the event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1656231497917052
Or RSVP on our Google Calendar event:
Come along and hear from experienced cyclocross riders and racers, practice some of the sport’s basic skills, and even try a couple of laps on our practice course!
We’ll start the day with a cyclocross information seminar by CX veteran Lara Srbinovski, where we’ll cover:
- What’s a cyclocross bike?
- How cyclocross races work – common formats and some wackier exceptions.
- How to find cyclocross races in your area
- How to sign up for a race
- What you need to know for your first race day
After the seminar we’ll run you through some of the sport’s basic skills, including:
- Cyclocross race starts – how they work, and our tips and tricks for success;
- Cornering skills and drills to get you shredding;
- Dismounting the bike, negotiating obstacles such as barriers or run-ups, and getting back on again;
- How to safely pass other riders (and how to be passed safely yourself);
- Handups – the most important skill of all!
If we have time at the end of the session, we’ll send folks out for a couple of hot laps on our training course too, and probably have a trip to the pub for lunch after.
Let's Talk About CX is now the official skills session and trail ride partner of Bicycle Network's City CX event!
You can get $10 off the price of your City CX registration with the code: LTACX21 if you sign up by March 21st.
You can see our partnership on Bicycle Network's page here: https://www.bicyclenetwork.com.au/.../tips-and-training/
Once a month in 2021 Let's Talk About CX will be organising some half day CX/Gravel Rides to get our legs stretching and our dirt skills re-kindled.
Think of them as cyclocross excursions, or as we like to call them, CX-cursions!
These half day rides will require a medium level of fitness (enough to ride around 50km of gravel and single track), and will be hosted on weekends to ensure everyone can join and get the most out of the experience!
The first of these will be held this Saturday February 27th, heading to Woodlands Historic Park north of Melbourne.
We'll have two crews making their way to Woodlands - a riding crew and a driving crew.
The riding crew will meet at Flemington Bridge train station at 8:00am for an 8:15am rollout. They'll roll up the paved Moonee Ponds Creek Trail at a comfortable pace, arriving at the car park outside Woodlands Trail Riding (a horse riding school) at the north end of Woodlands at around 9:45am.
The driving group will meet the riding group outside Woodlands Trail Riding (we advise getting there by 9:45am).
Both groups will socialise and catch up with any latecomers before rolling out to explore the rest of Woodlands at around 10:00am.
We'll explore Woodlands for about 90-120 minutes, depending on how everyone's feeling. The terrain will all be wide fire trails and gravel roads, so there won't be anything too challenging for those new to off-road riding.
Once we've all explored to our heart's content, we'll circle back to Woodlands Trail Riding.
The driving group can then head home, while the riding group will head on back to Flemington Bridge station to end the ride - possibly with a cheeky stop for a pub lunch on the way.
Strava link for riding group:
https://www.strava.com/routes/2799174377971819978
Meeting place for driving group:
https://goo.gl/maps/ANbirQumrjT13HVy9
Facebook Event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/176357914025733
It’s time for the first Let’s Talk About CX trail ride of 2021!
Join us this Tuesday evening for an hour-long ride along the Yarra trails. Meet at Guide Dogs Victoria at 6:15pm for a 6:30pm rollout.
Strava route (subject to change depending on trail conditions) is here: https://www.strava.com/routes/2798838679680430838
All riders are welcome regardless of previous experience and we’ll regroup regularly, so come along and say hi!
To add to your calendar and keep abreast of other similar sessions check out our training calendar!
It's with great excitement that we can announce Let's Talk About CX is hosting monthly CX-Cursions, as well as our first Annual Cyclocross intro day!
CX-Cursions
Once a month we'll be organising some half day CX/Gravel Rides to get our legs stretching and our dirt skills re-kindled. These half day rides will require a medium level of fitness (enough to ride 50km of gravel and single track), and will be hosted on weekends to ensure everyone can join and get the most our of the experience!
Cyclocross Intro Day
Our first annual CX intro day for 2021 will be hosted on Saturday March, 28th. Our CX Intro Days are the perfect space for those who want to get a grounding in what riding CX and dirt is all about. As an intro day, we will be focusing on core skills and drills that will be perfect for beginners and those that have never experienced riding off-road.
Our intro days are a great way to meet the community, and are a real "run what you've brung" setup. So no matter if you have a road bike, mountain bike, or a CX/Gravel bike, you're welcome to join, and will fit right in!
As comprehensive as we like to be with our advice and recommendations here at CX Down Under, there's a vast internet of CX information out there, and with everyone being encouraged to stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no better time to explore the CX internet.
Here are some of our favourites!
SVENNESS/LIKEAVOS
A gem of the early CX internet. The collection of videos titled SVENNESS and LIKEAVOS, made by Bill Schieken of CXHairs, analyse professional European racing to work out why the pros make the decisions they do. Each video is 10-15 minutes long, covering the actions of riders or a single course feature at a particular race - usually a high level race such as a World Cup, Superprestige round, or BPost Bank Trofeé race.
One video might focus on the back-and-forth battle between Sven Nys and rival Niels Albert, while another might look at the different strategies riders use when tackling a sand section or an off-camber descent.
The series was discontinued around 2016 (where you can see the rise of youngsters Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert), but remains a valuable resource for CX knowledge, as well as a great way to get hyped for racing season.
Svenness (men): https://www.cxhairs.com/tag/svenness/
Like a Vos (women): https://www.cxhairs.com/tag/likeavos/
HOW THE RACE WAS WON
Similar to SVENNESS/LIKEAVOS, Cosmo Catalano's 'How The Race Was Won' video series looks at the little things that make the difference in professional racing. Cosmo's (highly recommended) videos are mainly focused on road racing, but a few years back he turned his attention to pro races in North American CX, as part of a feature for a YouTube series called Behind the Barriers TV (which is also worth checking out).
There are fewer gems of CX advice to take into your next race than in SVENNESS or LIKEAVOS and the tone is more overtly comedic, but Cosmo has an incredible knack for noticing the little things you might not otherwise see - like a rider bending down mid-race to pick up a dollar bill. Definitely a worthwhile way to spend a few minutes the next time you're procrastinating on YouTube.
https://howtheracewaswon.com/cyclocross
TO BE DETERMINED CC - TYRE GUIDE
Ask 10 different cyclocrossers about their favourite CX tyre treads and you're likely to get 10 different answers - it's one of the things CX nerds love obsessing over!
If you don't know your FMB from your MXP, check out this guide by New York-based team To Be Determined, which breaks it down in a detailed fashion that's still accessible to beginners.
https://www.tobedetermined.cc/journal/the-best-cyclocross-tires
CYCLOCROSS MAGAZINE
An American-based publication, www.cxmagazine.com is the best English-language source of cyclocross news, race reports and photography. Coverage is largely focused on North American and European pro racing, so it's unlikely you'll see photos from your weekend club race, but it's a great way to stay abreast of the latest news in cyclocross during the Southern Hemisphere summer.
They also have occasional articles distributing coaching advice or profiling sweet bikes, which are well worth checking out.
GLOBAL CYCLING NETWORK
The GCN YouTube channel is the biggest source of cycling-related video content out there, and has churned out a number of great videos on CX over the past couple of years.
They now employ former US CX champ Jeremy Powers as one of their presenters, and they've got some great technique videos that explain some of the more specific aspects of CX in a beginner-friendly manner, such as dismounting the bike or running over barriers.
Their sister channel GCN Racing also streams European races such as the Superprestige and EthiasCross series, which is a great way to see coverage of European races with the benefit of English-language commentary.
Cyclocross videos on GCN: https://www.youtube.com/user/globalcyclingnetwork/search?query=cyclocross
2019-20 CX races on GCN Racing: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_IbDU0JIybRWBUFnUPtreux6-XsnIT2d
CYCLOCROSS24
Cyclocross24 is a great resource for those interested in pro cyclocross racing, as it's an extensive record of every placing of races as far back as the first cyclocross world championships in 1950.
Want to know who finished 57th in the Men's Elite World Championship in 2012? Cyclocross24 is the best place to go to find out. (The 57th place finisher was Aussie Lewis Rattray, since you're wondering).
While they do cover all UCI cyclocross races, they ONLY cover UCI cyclocross races, so your club results likely won't be up there, but it's a great resource for those more interested in the pro side of the sport.
CROSSRESULTS
Crossresults is like Cyclocross24 for the people. It's an American-based online recording of race results, which covers both pro and amateur racing. Depending on how much racing you've done, you may have a record on Crossresults without even knowing it!
Not only does Crossresults track your race placing, it allows you to rate the courses you've ridden by their technical difficulty, course conditions, hilliness, and overall stoke levels. It also allows you to see your race nemeses and their records against you - great for building rivalries with that one rider in your grade who you always find yourself battling with. Based on how you place across different race courses, it'll build a profile for you about your comparative strengths and weaknesses - e.g. that you're great in the wet, but not on hilly courses.
One extra feature of Crossresults is its international nature. If you want to race overseas (especially in the US) your Crossresults rating may help you get a better position in the start grid - something that could well prove necessary in North American fields, where races over 100 riders are not uncommon.
Unlike Cyclocross24, having a record on Crossresults is largely dependent on some generous soul (usually a race organiser or random cyclocross angel) uploading the results from your race to have them displayed - so the odds of having a complete record of every race you've ever done uploaded are slim unless you're willing to upload some yourself. However, as a method for stalking your rivals, it's unparalleled.
WE’RE BACK, BABY!
The Let’s Talk About CX crew have been cooped for way too long and it’s time to get out there and ride bikes!
Here’s what we’ve got planned leading into the 2021 CX season:
- Weekly trail rides will start back up on Tuesday evenings for the rest of daylight savings. Rides will meet at Guide Dogs Victoria at 6:15pm for a 6:30pm rollout.
- Weekly CX skills sessions will start on Thursday evenings on April 8th, once daylight savings ends. Rides will meet at Guide Dogs Victoria at 6:15pm for a 6:30pm rollout.
- This year we’ll be running monthly CX-cursions - half-day CX and gravel rides in and just outside suburban Melbourne. The first of these will be on Saturday Feb 28th, and will head to Woodlands. Meet up time and place TBC.
- If you’re new to cyclocross or know someone who is, we’ll be hosting a combination info session and training day for the upcoming CX season in March 28th. It’s a chance to learn about the sport, ask any questions you may have and level up your skills.
Get pumped for cyclocross in 2021 - we certainly are!