Cyclocross Melbourne - It's only weird the first time

The buz around Melbourne town has been cyclocross all year. From its inception into the Melbourne cycling scene last winter, everyone knew it was going to kick off in 2011 and the prolog at Brunswick didn't disappoint.

Having never raced cyclocross before I was both excited and apprehensive when the lads at My Mountain handed me my brand new Santacruz cyclocross bike and waved me good luck. “Shouldn’t I at least take it out for a practice run first”? “No you’ll be right” came the answer from Jerry as he stacked two full esky’s of beer onto a trailer for our short ride to the Brunswick velodrome. I was wondering if it would be possible for the MM crew to get through that much Belgium beer, but time would prove it wouldn’t be a problem. All gone ¾ through the night. The race was to be randomly divided into heats with each race lasting 5 laps around the sandy, muddy, smelly course. The guys at Dirty Deeds seemed to truck in cow pat water to wet the course to an appropriate amount for this mud festival of riding. Boy did it stink!



Photo thanks to Timoty Arch Photography



So after a Belgium beer or two I decided a warm up lap was in order as I wasn’t quite sure about how well or poorly these funky little Schwalbe Racing Ralphs would go hooking around muddy corners. But to be fair I didn’t really have a go on these warm up laps, but instead just cruised around enjoying the atmosphere while trying not to focus on the smell. It wouldn’t be until the first corner of the my first race that I would work out just how well those skinny little knobby tyres would in fact grip on a high speed, muddy, slippery corners. I won’t lie though and will admit as I hooked high on the velodrome track before swinging infield towards this first corner I was thinking to myself…”there is no way I am going to stay up-right at this speed, oh well hopefully I won’t be the only one to eat it hard on the first corer”. But I didn’t eat it, it was fantastic and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. Well that isn’t entirely true as the white, wooden fence I was approaching very fast took care of that. I mean how fast can you dismount a bike, keep running and jump an obstacle at the same time? Turns out quite fast! Next job was then to jump back on and get on the gas as hard as possible and try to get some speed out of the soggy ground before staring down the barrel of the infamous sandpit.

The sandpit had claimed its fair share of victims and as the night went on the sand pit technicians got more and more ambitious with how many and how high the sand piles would be. There was no coincidence this was in front of the main spectating stand as it produced many of the nights spectator uproars. Once through the sandpit there was one more fence and a couple of mud pits to negotiate before the first lap was done. While I can remember the first lap blow by blow the remaining four were a blur of fun and laughter while tearing my lungs out. And as I rolled up to the crew behind the fence I was handed another tasty Belgium refreshment. What a night!

Thanks Dirty Deeds for bringing the amazing culture of Cyclocross to Melbourne. Thanks for keeping it fun and giving us old bike heads a new experience. Can’t wait for the next one.