Re-structuring Winnipeg’s national cyclocross championships course
The Canadian cyclocross championships are returning to Winnipeg this year. The course, which was well received by racers in 2014, will be getting an update. Chris Huebner, one of the race’s co-organizers and CX course-design junky, looked for ways to adjust the course to make it better. Some of his challenges included making north/south spectator traffic smoother around The Forks, a popular Winnipeg destination. One design feature he’s exploring for the 2015 course is the flyover. It was absent last year. This year, he’s hoping to double down. Huebner wants to place one at the north end. “Cyclocross worlds in Hoogerheide two years ago had a flyover that I’m using as a model,” he said. “It covered two course lanes and was ramped up and down. I really want to keep the speed high in this area of the course, not the common North American steps up and ramp down, but ramps up and ramps down. It will be both lanes of the course. You’ll hit it one way and coming back, one big structure.” Such a structure would allow foot traffic to pass underneath. The second flyover is planned for the south. Huebner hopes to use the structure that features at Dark Cross, a fixture of the province’s ’cross circuit. He’d like to put the flyover at the top of the run-up from the riverbank. “I don’t want to have too many features that interrupt the flow of the course,” he said. “So this really makes that one big feature as opposed to throwing another set of stairs somewhere.” It will also make a nasty, leg-searing slog. “It’s pretty close to the finish so the run-up and planned flyover will be a pretty decisive place this year.”