Cape cyclocross festival embraces Pan Am race
Adam Sykes of Plymouth considers cyclocross racing a family endeavor. His family has been bringing New England’s cyclocross family together for 45 years, starting with his father, Bill Sykes, who owned Corner Cycle in Plymouth and launched the Plymouth Festival of Cyclocross in 1977. That annual fall festival relocated to the Cape Cod Fairgrounds in Falmouth in 2016, rebranding as the Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross. Sykes’s uncle, George Sykes, owns the festival’s chief sponsor — Corner Cycle Cape Cod — and Adam has served as event’s race director since 2013.
On Friday, Nov. 4, that family will expand to include the international cycling community, as the Really Rad Festival added the Pan American Cyclocross Championships to its weekend of USCX Cyclocross racing on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 5-6.
“The USCX is the largest cyclocross series outside of Europe,” Sykes said. “Outside of Belgium, New England has the largest cyclocross participation and fan base.”
For the uninitiated, cyclocross is a race-specific cycling discipline developed as an offseason training program in Europe. It blends road cycling, mountain biking, and crosscountry running in short (under an hour), intense races on twisting, often convoluted mixed-terrain courses.
The Pan Am championships are open to competitors from any of the 44 countries across South, Central, and North America that belong to the Pan American Cycling Federation.
“We expect to have 2,000 racers over the race weekend,” Sykes said. “There will be racers from all over the United States and Canada, and there are a handful of racers expected from Central and South America.”
The 2022 Pan Am championships were originally awarded to Costa Rica, the first time the event was scheduled outside North America. Unfortunately, local officials decided races couldn’t be held at Parque Viva in Alajuela, and when organizers failed to find a substitute venue, they looked outside Costa Rica.
Canadian Josh Peacock, Pan American Cyclocross Commission’s interim president, said “the collaboration with Really Rad was an easy choice,” noting the events fell on the same weekend. Sykes agreed.
“Because the Really Rad Festival had a high level of infrastructure already in place, it was the best solution,” he said. “Since the Pan Am event is getting to piggyback off a top level USCX event, they’ll be some of the best produced Pan Am cyclocross championships ever.”
That’s good news for Masters racer Adam Myerson of Dorchester, winner of the 2021 PanAm 50-54 age group in Texas (he also won the 2018 Pan Am 45-54 title). Myerson was non-committal about the Costa Rica race “because there was just no reliable info. that it was going to take place.”
Likewise, Curtis White of Beverly, who won the 2019 Elite Pan-Am Cyclocross Championship in Ontario, said he “was sad to see when Costa Rica announced that they were no longer able to host this championship, but thrilled to see Falmouth pick up the torch.”
“The Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross has stepped up its game with promoting a worldclass event, and with bringing racers, fans, and bike enthusiasts together,” White said.
Though the Pan American Cycling Federation was established in 1922, cyclocross is still a relatively new discipline. Preserving the championships was critical for the sport’s continued growth.
“With a big push to bring cyclocross to the winter Olympics, any advancement for events like this will only help that effort,” Sykes said.
Competitors will benefit as well. “For our elite racers, Pan Ams is critical for picking up UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) points they can take with them to Europe and international events,” Myerson said. “For the Masters, it gives us a richer racing experience overall, and one more big event to focus on.”
Pan-American championship titles, male and female, will be awarded in three UCI categories — Junior, Under-23 and Elite — as well as Masters categories 3539, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, and 65-plus.