JeffOYB

Bummer that cross is dead in mid-Michigan. Gravel has killed it. Gravel rules. Straight lines for the win! And stones flying everywhere! There's not a PEEP about cross. About a dozen gravel hammerheads, though, who do every race on earth. All the road, all the mtbike, all the gravel, all the ultras and epics. ...And not a word about cross. They're all about the versatility of their carbon gravel bikes -- but when i say "hey you're good to go for cross with that!" they're all excuses. It's a whole new world of 650B and 45mm ... what WOULD that be like for cross? they have their low BB and high handlebar. they like to say they're IN their bike not ON it. Fine! Cross is coming! ...Well, it's crickets for them. I even saw one of their top dudes rubbing on EMBRO ... !!!

burnthesheep

First race is Saturday here for a 4- race series local to me.

The other statewide series has like 75% of their events over 3 hours away. I can't do that for a single 4/5 race. Not enough points for 3/4 and 4/5 double up day, and not old enough for masters yet. And don't own a singlespeed. I know some do the zip ties or RD limit screws, but here you need a single speed for that. Also you have to do like 2/3 of the events to get points and 2/3 of the events are 3 hour drives.

So, that'd be my gripe here. But am lucky the 4 race series is all within 30min. I can ride to the one event from the house. But don't as my kids do the free ride thing at the event and couldn't make it there/back.

I always have this performance anxiety because I'm fast on tarmac, slow off road. But always have fun no matter.

jfmckenna

Yeah I don't get the whole gravel thing either. No thanks to flat tires and silicosis and a body made of hamburger if you crash.

We have our first two CX races this Saturday and Sunday, UCI event too.

msu2001la

Cross in Chicago is about to get going for real this weekend.
Our local series got cancelled (again) due to COVID, but a handful of individual races are still happening. Will be interesting to see what the field sizes are like.

I'm guessing we will see a lot of gravel bikes being used.

Hmmm

Alive and well here in France. But then again, we're spoiled being not far from Belgium.

How much crossover is everyone seeing between gravel and 'cross? To me it's a no brainer. Honestly, I'm much less terrified of a 'cross course than something like a mass gravel start.

cmh

CX is alive and (mostly) well here in the Portland. Our weeknight series was cancelled (I believe due to Covid), but there are races every weekend until Thanksgiving, most of which are less than 90 minutes away. It does seem like fields are a little smaller than a few years ago.

chas58

Yeah, I posted this in the "general" CX, gravel forum - not much of a response there either. Slim pickings for events in Michigan this year (better than 2020 though!)
Jeff: If ya look closely, that is a MICX 2017 sticker on my head tube of my Inflite in its natural environment. Photos below from DIXC2021

Here is my other post:

EventServices

I had a conversation with someone who finished Top 10 at Elite Nats last weekend. He believes -as I do - that CX has peaked and will never be what it was when Worlds were in Louisville. Cross was king for a few years.

I think Gravel's appeal is that it's longer than an hour 'cross race, and it's more of a hammer fest and less riding around in little spurts of speed. It's not a spectator-friendly event, but how big were the crowds at your Saturday 'cross race, really?

Frankly, watching Elite Nats was about the same level of excitement as watching a webcam of my local rail trail on a Tuesday afternoon. Not even remotely interesting except watching my friend move up one position in the entire hour (and still finish top 10).

burnthesheep

Local to me it's pretty good, but my criticism is that the "big series" is all over the western most 1/3 of the state very Charlotte centric. They did 2 of like 12 events closer to me not necessitating overnight stays since each weekend was a "double" race.

For anyone putting this stuff on:
I'd prefer local series act as feeders to a regional championship weekend or something. Like, you do your 4 or 6 or whatever local races all within a 1 hour drive of yourself and you get points. Then, top 50% or top 30% qualify for the regionals weekend. Otherwise, this back 2 back weekend stuff is crap for series where all the events are hours and hours and hours away. Convincing family to have you drive 4 hours somewhere to stay in a motel 6 for a weekend to go do two 30min races over two days.

I think local wins out here. I did all the races except 1 that was within an hour of my house this season. I did exactly zero of the "Sat Sun double" events in the statewide series where 90% of the events were 4 hour drives needing a camping/hotel.

Also, callups being what they should for folks who do the series.......makes it not fun for locals wanting to jump into a single race. There goes the day right there. So when the statewide series DOES come local, I might not even do it if I'm going to be mid to back of pack at start. I don't know, do callups even make sense for a series to have the locals in the back? Locals getting the callups instead would mean they can have fun but they don't affect the series points in any way since you have to do X number of events anyway to get series points. Interesting thought.