I kind of get the sense that I’m not supposed to be there, this is for the pros and people like me aren’t supposed to register. I think I made my small financial donation and not going to participate. I had a great season up until yesterday, when I finished with my worst performance of the year, no need to make it worse when I don’t get redemption for 9-months.
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Cyclocross newbie here. This is my first season and my first year riding off road. Took up cyclocross to improve my bike handling, and I absolutely love it. I bring up the rear in every race but still having a blast, and looking to improve for next year.
I have the fitness but I don’t have the bike handling skills and just general confidence of riding off road.
My question, would wider bars give me more stability on the bike and should I get new bars?
I currently have 38 cm bars on my CX bike as that’s what I’m running on my road bike, but my Crocket came with 42cm bars. Should I be using wider bars?
My plan for the cross off season is to hit the trails hard and work on handling and confidence. But curious if my set up should change as well.
Thanks for the advice! Any skill drills to improve handling and confidence are also welcome!
This quote describes me EXACTLY.
I have found that wider bars help enormously. 38 sounds comically too small for cross. My first bike came with standard 42s, and I didn’t know any better, so I rode those for a few years. Then I switched to 44s and it was a revelation. I suddenly felt like I was driving a monster truck. I tried a season on 46s but they were too wide for me (I’m a pretty normally proportioned 5’10.5" human). Now when I get on my old bike with 42s I feel like I’m driving a clown car.
Everyone is different, but I would guess that you are giving something up riding 38s. If you’ve still got the 42s that came on the Crocket, why not switch them just to see?
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Does anyone have any solutions for mud throwing the chain off of a narrow/wide chainring?
This has only happened to me twice, but it is super annoying. Happened yesterday when I have having a fantastic race in the state championships–ended up running half a lap and finishing second-to-last.
I think what happens is this: When it gets really muddy and my chainring gets totally caked, the teeth effectively become ‘too wide’ for the chain. Chain tension will generally be enough to keep the chain on, but if you’re unlucky and hit a bump or something at the wrong point of your pedal stroke, the chain can pop off and then you can’t get it back on. I stopped three different times during my run yesterday to try to wipe the ring off and force the chain back on (yes, I was making sure to align the correct teeth with the correct links), but to no avail.
Like I said, this has only happened to be twice over the course of many many single-ring races. That’s what makes me think there is an element of luck at work here, otherwise it would happen all the time (when the mud is thick, that is). Has anyone else experienced this?
Thanks for the tip! I’m going to try it!
Yeah, that looks like a nice product. Too bad my new bike won’t accept a front derailleur…
Are you coming to Nats? Didn’t see you at Whidbey over the weekend.
What derailleur?
I am somewhat the opposite - I am trying to bring my fitness level up to my bike handling skills. I can often gain time on technical sections of courses, and do poorly on the “grass crit” style courses.
I run 40 cm bars, with a 12 deg flair so the drops are probably 42 cm wide. I dont feel like I am missing out on anything with the narrow bars. And my MTB is set up with 750cm bars, so I am no stranger to wider bars. I just don’t find myself missing the wider bars in CX.
Good choice! I recommend looking for trails with features slightly more technical than what you see in the CX courses you typically race. This will expand your comfort level on technical terrain.
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How many of you here have raced or currently race a flat bar cross bike? I’m building up a single speed cross bike and am considering going flat bar so that I can also enjoy it on urban, flowy single track.
I have a flat bar SSCX build.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the flat bars. I built this bike as a bar bike rather than a race bike and for that it’s great. People seem to really get a kick out of the styling.
However, for racing there’s some definite draw backs.
Firstly, If there’s a specific line burned into a corner you often can’t take it. Reason being that the bars are too damn wide and will likely hit the course tape or stakes.
Second, again the bars are too damn wide so you can’t pass folks through the same gaps as you could on a drop bar bike. So you really need to make them passes count.
Third, again bars too wide and you feel like a sail, although this could be mental. However, it’s almost certainly less aero.
Fourth, it’s likely that the flat bars will mess with your fit. These bikes really are not designed for a flat bar and have a bit short of a top tube so you end up sitting more upright than you would if you had drops.
One other note… when bumping shoulders with guys on drop bars you usually feel like one of you is gonna get taken out super sketchy.
That being said, the extra leverage definitely makes the bike a hoot to ride. Once you get some separation from the other racers it can be a lot of fun.
The bike is more fun to wheelie, it is more fun to bunny hop, and it is more fun on single track. However, if getting on the podium at your local SSCX race is your goal, I’d probably stick to drops.
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I ride my cx bike on singletrack all of the time. I like being in the drops for that sort of stuff.
Gosh, I hadn’t gotten this far into researching my build. Very very good consideration. I suppose it would be equivalent to riding on the tops all of the time. I can live with all the other stuff, even not being on the podium. Our SSCX field is talented, it’ll be my fitness and not bike that keeps me from being on one of the steps.
My other bike is a drop bar, 1x gravel/road bike. I’m looking for something a little different and thought a flat bar single speed could be fun. I only race 7-10 CX races a year so it doesn’t take up that much of my riding. I would also use this bike as a daily commuter and ride local single track. Could see myself doing a couple metric gravel centuries on it as well to mix it up.
I do too. It’s a lot of fun. I just like the feel of MTB brakes levers versus road levers. Much less fatiguing.
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On that note, I think on singletrack the flat bars definitely are more comfortable. For whatever reason the drop bars seem to hurt my wrists every time I ride with those on mountain bike trails.
Can’t say that wider bars will equate with more stability, if anything I’ve had too wide of bars (or also coming from a roadie background too high of a setup of said bars on a new MTB rig) and I ended up feeling like I was steering a fire truck (which does not help in the confidence and skill building department)! My suggestion is to get some cones and set up a course in a flat park for these CX drills; I was going to send all the YT vids but it’s just easier to share my curated CX playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-E5S4GnUo7y4vQKAfuW9Mb_UUbSFH41g
Also getting a MTB and being able to take on more technical trails with steeper drops and corner at higher speeds than what I do on my CX rig has helped tremendously in the confidence and skill areas as well, not sure getting a rig is in your budget but even getting a used MTB rig to start with would be really helpful.
Here in Minnesota we have great infrastructure in terms of early season CX clinics and a weekly mid-week CX race series to take advantage of in late August/early Sept after the end of road season as well as coaches and folks who are willing to take time to work with people, not sure where you are but I’d assume if you do some hunting on facebook or a quick google search you’d be able to find similar resources in your area?
Finally, being able to simply follow a more advanced rider’s lines on a trail or the aforementioned CX drill setup in the park is SUPER helpful! (same with those informal weekly CX races, I purposely stayed for the “advanced/elite” race at the end of the evening and even though I was tired–which actually helps since it “forces” you to ride and race smarter and you have less energy to do stupid braking/accelerating decisions in corners–you get to follow really great lines in corners and off-cambers and learn a lot by osmosis that way)! Hope all this helps. 
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Thank you!
So just over a week ago I did my first ever CX event here in Upper Austria, and what an eye opener it was.
The conditions were, well, absolutely horrid. The course as well was very technical, and given my background - trials, MTB, road - I thought I would be OK, but nevertheless I pretty much capitulated or it felt like that at least.
On the gravelly bits, was fine. I am a pretty strong road racer and especially good at climbing (that is what I train). It goes to show: my ok w/kg (about 4.5 atm) did not matter a toss! The mud being so thick it just chucked me off my bike. My handling suffered as I was so cold. My technique for mounting was bad. My setup was wrong too; UCI standard widths just cut through like a pizza. Also, doing do many burst efforts in the cold was tough (was about 1 deg C).
Anyway - thoroughly enjoyed it, despite ending up right near the back. Someone please book me some better weather next time 
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CX is hard!
Imagine how much MORE hard it would have been if you were closer to 3 watt/kg like some of us mere mortals 
Haha no I’m just skinny that’s all and only do one thing ok, which is a slight uphill alright.
Tips on super thick mud needed for next time!
Mud is sort of an anti hill for you. Mud benefits absolute power not watt/kg.
Tipwise…the UCI tire limit actually helps you a bit. Bigger tires DONT cut through the mud. So you just fall, rather than slogging through with something resembling traction. Other than that…experience knowing when/what you can ride through, when to tripod through offcamber stuff with a foot out, and when to just get off and run.
But introduces a lot more decision making in the game IN ADDITION to just line choice.
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