first cross clinic: how to cyclocross in 150 easy leaps

I went to the first 'cross clinic last night, a womens-only affair held at Alpenrose (also the site of the first Cross Crusade race in October). The sky was filled with dark, swirling clouds that threatened rain, and the air felt cool and refreshing. Out on the velodrome, a few track racers were doing warmup laps for their evening, which would be interrupted at the first sign of rain. When it rained, the trackies all went home, and the 'crossers all came out to play; I smiled at the thought.

There were about a dozen of us, ranging in age from teens to forties. I was, not surprisingly, the only singlespeed rider in the class. We began with a short Q & A in the parking lot, then proceeded to a grassy area next to the velodrome for some on-off drills. Two wooden barriers had been set up for us to practice with; the top of each was perhaps two-thirds of the way up my shin. The point was to dismount while the bike was rolling forward, hop off and pick up your bike in one fluid motion, and hop over the barriers. Once you cleared them, you continued to move forward, set down the bike, hop back on and resume pedaling.

The getting off turned out to be remarkably easy once I figure out where to balance my hip against the saddle as the bike coasted. (I used to dismount my road bike this way as a teenager, but stopped when it became dangerous to do so in traffic.) I watched the other women struggle to unclip their left foot from their clipless pedals as they rolled up to the barrier and stepped down, and remembered the other reason I'd decided to race with flat pedals. My touring shoes gripped the spiky flat pedals reassuringly and did not slip once all evening. I dismounted with growing ease each time, grabbing the downtube and lifting Stompy up into my armpit as I hopped over the barriers.

Getting back on was harder. Tina, our excellent instructor, demonstrated a gorgeous, almost balletic motion as both feet left the ground and she gently flew onto her saddle. I tried it several times and found that my nether-region couldn't trust me to get on the bike that way. Fortunately, I figured out a way to sort of walk back onto my saddle while the bike rolled forward -- not as graceful, and certainly slower, but much better than bringing the bike to a dead stop each time. Tina watched and asked me to do it again and again. Finally, she said, "it's not pretty, but it's better than stopping completely." She asked me to practice at home to see if I could learn to fly onto the saddle like her. "The only reason you can do it your way," she said, "is because of those long legs of yours. But it's still slower." I nodded and kept riding while offering a silent thanks to my parents for my long legs.

And for my arms. I watched shorter women struggle with both the lift-and-carry and with hopping over the barriers. Tina, a petite rider herself, demonstrated a different technique for carrying the bike that shorter riders could use. As my mountain bike's front triangle was too small for me to carry with my arm through it, I opted for my downtube grab-and-lift; my long limbs allowed me to make it work without swinging the bike horizontally out to the side, and that was good enough for Tina. "Sure, that'll work," she smiled as I passed her. "Seems you've got pretty long arms too." I would never look like the classic 'cross racer with my arm laced gracefully through the front triangle and laid across the drop bar, but I didn't care. It worked.

We also practiced a little off-camber riding, which was basically a repeat of some of the stuff I'd encountered at short-track. Once again, getting out in front of -- or at least away from -- riders on geared bikes was key. Once I did, I found that I had enough distance and momentum to power up the hill. I smiled as other women began to realize I was riding a singespeed (the Convert makes it look, at first blush, like I'm running some sort of bastard derailleur), and gasped in surprise. Meanwhile, I was enjoying learning these new techniques, and feeling more and more committed to singlespeed by the minute. I just felt so clean and uncluttered riding it, and I knew that eventually I would want to transition out of the Beginner ranks, not into my Masters age group but into the Singlespeed category. Singlespeed rocks.

I thanked Tina for the clinic and left a few minutes early to make my bus. When I got home I felt a little chill, a hint of the autumn to come.I was not sorry I had worried so much -- it's part of the process, I guess -- but I was glad that my worries were groundless. There's plenty of summer left, but fall has a new feel and a new meaning to me. I think I could really enjoy myself at this cyclocross thing. Bring on the rain.