Withdrawal

I'm going through a bit of cyclocross withdrawal. There's not as much happening, although I guess the tension is building before Sven Nys wins the world championship in two weeks. Last weekend was the national championships for most of the European countries, and most of the winners were predictable. The USA holds ours in December, but according to this, it looks like we are trying to follow the European lead and hold ours on the same January weekend. I agree with the linked blogger - it seems OK for us to be different, in the interests of allowing our country's finest the best, uninterrupted European campaign leading up to Worlds. But, if we do move it to January, I'm betting it won't be held in cities such as Kansas City, since coming from the midwest, we know that January's weather is typically even less hospitable, and perhaps "too cold for cross". Perhaps that's good for Seattle and Portland - maybe we'll host Nationals more regularly.

My withdrawal is the usual doldrums of not much happening in the professional cycling world, but thankfully, now that I have found cyclocross, the doldrums will be much shorter! It used to be that when the road world championships were over (in the Fall, after the Vuelta), there were just a couple of races left, and then I had to hold out until February of the next year. The minor lull in cross racing activity now means there's really only a two week hiatus from results, live and delayed video coverage and commentary. I guess it is OK - I can catch up on reading books (when I am done reading all the cycling blogs I follow!).