Ask The CXpert

It would have made sense to consult five times British cyclo-cross champion Ian Field before my first race, but I didn’t… Afterwards, I asked him where I went wrong How do you make the call to dismount and run? There’s a point in every race when running is faster than riding, usually around particularly tricky corners or longer sections of mud. You need to factor the time lost dismounting and remounting the bike into this equation so experience and knowing your own ability is crucial. Quite often you’ll stay on the bike but then feel like it would be faster to run – it’s too late but the beauty of ’cross is you will be round to the same point in a few minutes so you can learn from the mistake and put it right. I got a bruised shoulder and the bar kept hitting me when I carried the bike. What was I doing wrong? Holding the bike tight to your body stops it moving around but other than that, toughen up! If you carry your bike on the right shoulder then the right arm should be holding onto the handlebar with your arm wrapped around the head-tube or under the down-tube securing the bike tight onto your shoulder and preventing the bar from spinning. Hurdles – dismount or bunny hop? If you can bunny hop safely, this is the fastest option nine times out of 10. The perfect bunny hop means lifting the front wheel first and then the back so both wheels clear the obstacle rather than pulling both wheels off the ground at the same time. I came off twice in a woody section. I’m blaming wheel slip on roots, how do you deal with those? Always try and hit roots square on/at a 90-degree angle so that your wheels can’t slip off in another direction. If the angles don’t make this possible, performing a small bunny hop or simply lifting the front wheel over them works. I dropped my tyre pressure to around 40psi, but how do you judge what pressure to use and how low can you go? You need to keep going lower until you find the balance between hitting the rim and enough grip to get you through the corners and up bankings without wheel slip. You can’t go as low with inner tubes as you can with tubular tyres though. I won the National Championships two years ago with just 15psi in my tubulars! Where’s the best place to practice technique and what sort of fitness training works best for CX? My top training advice would be to practice techniques in a local park or woodland. You want a safe environment with plenty of space to get it wrong a few times before you master the skill set. To be good at ’cross you need to be super fit across all aspects so working on tempo/ threshold efforts as well as really short and sharp high intensity efforts are needed. Ian Field is a Ridley rider and races for Hargroves Cycles Ridley Montezuma’s. In January he won his fifth national CX title.