Ok, so you know the deal already. Veterans Katie Compton and Jonathan Page lit it up in a less than warm and fuzzy National CX Championship race in the land of cheese and muskie. On top of all that, Colorado riders did a wonderful job of representing the flag and rode incredibly well taking home a pile of metal. And the course was brutally different for nearly every race and racer. And it was good to see such a positive buzz all over the University of Facebook all week. There was one post on Facebook that struck me as funny however, it came from Brett Batchelder when he mentioned the smaller fields than he could remember from past National CX Championship events. If this is indeed the case, I think it's a combo of things. First of all the economy sucks, and for the common man like me it's not possible to go and compete in Wisconsin or Kentucky for that matter. Secondly at this point I'm over riding bikes this time of year (all though I'm always ready to call the action!) and I'm consumed with ski season. This is when I prefer to take 2-3 months off the bike and not even think about pedaling, and ski, downhill, because it's so damn fun.
I think the other part of why numbers dwindle is that many of us realize that it's not that much fun to spend thousands of dollars to travel and finish 50th in a race. After years of training and racing, you finally realize that the gifted athletes, the athletes who have been born with a naturally big engine, will reep all the benefits and victories no matter how hard we train, for if you do not have the natural born ability to begin with, you can improve some, but you will never get to the elite level of the gifted. You can ride the same bike, tires, wheels, shoes, and components as the best of the best, but these same riders could show up on a rusty Huffy and kick our asses because they have been born with a gift, and I have not. I can show up to a race and tell you exactly where and who I will finish behind, so I prefer to simply talk about it. And that works best for me.
Photos from Wil Matthews/Velo News
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