There are a couple of things I’ve learned since I began racing cyclocross this year: 

1) I’m not as strong as I think I am, and I don't think I'm strong. 

2) Warm up!

3) Wheels are quite possibly the most important thing you can upgrade on your bike.

4) The coolest people in the world ride bicycles. 

And,

5) I have no idea why it’s so fun yet and I’m so awful at it. 

Oh, I could tell stories.  I could tell stories of my first race, right off the gun I sprinted up a hill, ran out of gas and spent the entire race being passed, lapped, by kids on single-speed mountainbikes and chubby, sweaty men cheering me on as I blow snot onto my handlebars and they look back at me and smile as they ride effortlessly away. 

I could tell stories of the first time I had to use other riders to shield me from the wind, and on the next lap when I felt strong and smart and I passed them on the technical portion of the course only to have them all line up behind me when we hit the windy portion, like some kind of “Fistler’s Train of Pain,” and promptly blew me up and left me again slobbering onto my handlebars as they all rode away from me on the last two laps. 

There are plenty of those stories, but that’s not what I’d like to write about.  I’d like to write about the fact that right after my first DFL finish, my wife, Katie, in her first ever race went out and podiumed.  The next race she did, she won.  Me? Well, I went from DFL in my first, to 21^st in my second race, to 17^th in my third, then 12^th in my fourth.  Still, that’s not really what it’s about either is it? 

I’m not sure what it’s about, but I know that after my first race when I was sitting in the grass and drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Shiner Bock and watching my wife, the guy I let borrow my shoes in the Cat 3 race came up and asked me how I liked it and chatted with me for a while.  Then another guy came up and told me about his racing experiences as well.  These guys were Cat 1, 2, and 3s, way too cool to even acknowledge me, I felt, but there they were talking to me.  Instead of hanging around the team truck or van or whatever, they come over and talk with me: the guy that just got lapped by a bunch of squeaky chained guys who shared my belly, but not my lung capacity.  I couldn’t help but crack a smile.  I sniffled a little and vowed I would return. 

I drew up an enormous workout plan.  I was sweating over the trainer, running up and down the stadium steps and up the East Park sledhill with my bike over my shoulder at 6:30 in the morning on a Sunday in the rain.  Oddly, it didn’t feel like work at all.  It’s fun!  The odd question about cross is always, “How is this fun?”  I mean, we jump off and on our bikes and run them up hills, through the mud, snow, and quite often, cow and horse manure.  How is that fun? 

    Above: Doesn't that look fun?

I have no idea.  It just is.  And what’s more peculiar, the worse the conditions: the more fun it is. 

And so I raced.  I moved up the ranks in every race, and so did Katie.  The times we spent together before and after those races were some of the greatest moments of our marriage.  Soon, she joined a very cool team of likeminded women from Des Moines (You can check them out here).  Cool bike people like Kim West came and talked to us, Katie was interviewed for his radio show/blog.  The guy who barrowed my shoes before my first race paid my entry fee on the race he put on in Marshalltown (Thanks Brent!).  Back home, other people started running up and down the hill at East Park along with us, like the guys from NI Spin, and anyone else who wanted to be looked at like a crazy person while they run with their bikes on their backs up a steep hill in the dark.  A couple folks from NI Spin even came to the races and buried me as well, and shared post-race beer stories.  And, when I wasn’t looking, my gut disappeared.   

      Above: Katie in her first race on her new team.

Somewhere in that mess above, I think, might be the key to this question of what cyclocross is all about.  Thanks for reading. 



-B. Fistler