Mark
Alright folks. It’s almost the most wonderful time of the year. Cyclocross season is almost upon us. Below you’ll find brief descriptions of the club’s cx training rides, local events, our favorite weekly series and the Ontario racing scene.
WCC Saturday Practice at Columbia Lake
We’re continuing the Saturday practice sessions. Once again we’re at Columbia lake, starting around 9 AM. A mini course will be set up with taped turns and a set of barriers. We’ll do some skills work, and race simulations/intervals. Practice as a whole will be a little more structured this year. The courses will cycle between three different locations in the park for a change of terrain.
First session is August 18th. We’re taking August 25th off for The Big Ride, and the long weekend, but we’ll pick up again starting September 8th.
WCC CX Party - Sept 15th
Just like last year, we’re planning a cx party at Columbia Lake. We’re encouraging everyone to come out and enjoy an afternoon in the park with friends. Bring whatever bike you’ve got, MTB, hybrid, endurance road…. penny farthing. If you don’t have anything then fear not. Tim from Velofix has arranged a KindHuman Bicycles demo day at the social.
We will provide a variety of snacks and drinks under the WCC tent. There will likely be draw prizes and shenanigans.
WCC Thursday Skills at McLennan (and trail ride after)
Thursday night training continues this year, starting August 16th, at McLennan park. We’ll focus on starts, turning practice, mounts and remounts, and the infamous heartbreaker lap. Good news is the beach volleyball courts are open again, so some much-needed sand practice will be on tap this year (hellooo Baseball cross and Hardwood cross)
New for this year, we’ll be doing a training ride after the skills session (around 8 PM probably). There’s tons of parks and trails in the south end around McLennan to explore and have fun.
Kelso Series (Tuesdays)
The kelso cyclocross series is a great way to get into racing, and typically WCC has the highest numbers of any club. If you’re looking to get into racing, or for a great weekly training race, this is the one to go to.
Last year we had a great contingent coming out every week. A few of us met at Moose Winooski’s after the last race - I’m thinking we make this a biweekly post-race social event.
Details aren’t out yet for the series, but it’s normally after labour day, and is 8 weeks long.
Nordic Cats Series (Wednesdays)
Another weekly series, that just started up last year. This one is a great value, with a low entry fee and a long season. (Aug 22 to Oct 31, $6 per race if you do them all) The course is flowy and fast, perhaps not the most technical, but great for fitness.
O-Cup races
O-Cups are the prime races for ontario cyclocross. Attendance is high, and these are tons of fun. As usual, we’ll have the club tent at all the o-cups. A race license is required for O-Cups, but in the entry level categories a citizen permit is allowed. The OCA also offers cyclocross-only licenses, if you didn’t race road of MTB this year. Currently, the O-Cup circuit has 4 races in the series.
New for this year, the upgrade points system has been updated. Categories with 30+ riders now get an even deeper spread of points, all the way down to 14th. Points are no longer given by placing within your race category, but instead in the full race (when two fields are combined, i.e. M2 and E3). Also new, the M3 and E4 fields have been split up. M3 is now the first race of each O-Cup (9:30 AM), followed by E4 at 10:30.
Regional Races
There are also 4 regional races this year. These are also sanctioned by the OCA, use the same race categories as O-Cups, and still give out upgrade points.
KWCX Regional Race
Of course, the big news for this season is the WCC organizing our very own race, KWCX. Saturday, October 27th, at Bingemans in Kitchener. Come on out and race, we’re going to have the normal O-cup categories, plus some fun categories (fatbike anyone?).
If you’re not interested in racing, consider volunteering. We’ll need help with setup and teardown, at registration, and all sorts of other tasks.
If you can’t volunteer or race, then just come on out and watch. Have fun, cheer on any WCC or Faction racers you see, look for the beer garden and Boston Pizza Food Truck. Treat this as another social activity. Grab a cowbell and try your hand at heckling.
Hope to see everyone out there.
Kevin and Mark