You have the fitness.
Your power numbers are good. You can hang with the riders around you on the straight sections. Maybe you’re even stronger than some of them.
Then you hit a series of corners.
Suddenly there’s a gap.
You close it.
Then come the barriers. Another gap.
You close that one, too.
Then there’s an off-camber section, a steep little climb, or a muddy descent, and you’re chasing again.
By the end of the race, you’re exhausted, not necessarily because the other riders are fitter, but because you’ve spent the entire race using your fitness to make up for the time you lost technically.
If that sounds familiar, you probably don’t need another interval workout.
You need to practice your cyclocross skills.
For masters cyclocross racers especially, one of the simplest ways to get faster may be to spend less time trying to squeeze another few watts out of your fitness and more time becoming smoother, more confident, and more efficient on the bike.
And that means practicing the basics every week.
Cyclocross Fitness Only Gets You So Far
Cyclocross is an unusual endurance sport because fitness is only part of the equation.
A typical course asks you to accelerate, brake, corner, climb, descend, dismount, run, remount, ride through mud or sand, negotiate off-camber terrain, and make decisions about lines and traction, all while your heart rate is near its maximum.
That creates an important distinction between being fit enough to race fast and being skilled enough to use that fitness effectively.
The better you become technically, the less energy you waste.
Imagine Rider A and Rider B entering a corner together.
Rider A brakes hard, hesitates, takes a poor line, exits slowly, and then has to produce 500 watts to get back up to speed.
Rider B brakes earlier and more smoothly, chooses a better line, maintains momentum, and accelerates out of the corner without a massive surge.
Multiply that by dozens of corners during a race.
Fitness matters.
But so does how often you are forced to use that fitness unnecessarily.
Why Cornering May Be Your Biggest Opportunity
If you’re going to work on only one cyclocross skill, start with cornering.
You might encounter barriers once per lap.
You only start once.
But you might corner dozens of times per lap.
That doesn’t mean you need to become some kind of technical wizard.
Start with the basics.
Look through the corner instead of at your front wheel.
Use your belly button to guide your corner. Point the belly toward where you want to go.
Do most of your braking before the turn.
Experiment with different lines.
Keep your body relaxed.
Understand where the traction is.
Think about your exit, not just your entrance.
And perhaps most importantly, practice carrying speed.
You don’t need an elaborate course.
Put a few cones in a grassy field and make turns.
Make some wide.
Make some tight.
Create an S-turn.
Find a small hill and put a turn at the bottom.
Find a slope and practice an off-camber turn.
Ride the same corner repeatedly and experiment.
What happens if you brake later?
What happens if you enter wider?
What happens if you look farther through the corner?
What happens if the grass is wet?
This is practice, not a workout you need to “win.”
Practice Cyclocross Starts Before Race Day
The cyclocross start deserves attention for the opposite reason.
You only do it once.
But it can dramatically affect the rest of your race.
A poor start can put you behind riders before the first technical section, forcing you to brake, wait, pass, and repeatedly accelerate while the front of the race disappears.
A good start isn’t just about producing enormous power.
It’s a skill.
You need to know which gear to use.
You need to be able to clip in quickly.
You need to shift smoothly while accelerating.
And you need to be comfortable doing all of that under pressure.
Those things can be practiced.
Practice from a stationary position with one foot clipped in, concentrating on clipping the second foot quickly and accelerating hard.
I practice starts with short efforts, working on getting 10 perfect clip ins.
Practice getting everything right.
The correct gear.
Foot position.
Clip-in.
Acceleration.
Shifting.
Then occasionally practice with another rider next to you.
Suddenly the drill feels much more like cyclocross.
Keep Barrier Practice Simple
Barriers are another place where riders can make cyclocross unnecessarily complicated.
You don’t need to bunny hop them.
In fact, unless you are already extremely comfortable bunny hopping obstacles, I would rather see most masters racers become exceptionally good at a basic dismount, barrier carry, and remount.
The risk-reward calculation matters.
Become boringly good at getting off your bike.
Then become boringly good at getting back on it.
Start slowly.
Practice the dismount without a barrier.
Then add a small obstacle.
Practice lifting the bike.
Walk it.
Jog it.
Then gradually increase the speed.
The goal isn’t to make the technique spectacular.
The goal is to make it automatic.
At the start of every cyclocross practice, I do 100 dismounts and remounts, getting faster and faster until I’m at race speed.
Practice Technical Sections When You’re Fresh. Then When You’re Tired
There are really two stages of cyclocross skills practice.
First, learn the skill.
Then learn to perform the skill while racing.
Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.
If you’re learning a new dismount, don’t try to learn it while doing VO2max intervals.
Slow down.
Concentrate.
Repeat it.
Once the movement becomes comfortable, start adding speed.
Eventually, put that skill into a short cyclocross course where you have to execute it while breathing hard.
This progression from isolated skills toward combining barriers, corners, starts, descents, and other features at race intensity is commonly used in structured cyclocross coaching sessions.
That’s when skills practice becomes race preparation.
You have to be able to make good decisions when your heart rate is high and your brain is screaming at you to simply follow the wheel ahead.
Take Your Cyclocross Bike on Mountain Bike Trails
One of my favorite ways to improve cyclocross skills doesn’t require cones or a practice course.
Take your cyclocross bike onto appropriate mountain bike trails.
Obviously, choose trails that are legal for bikes and match your ability level.
You don’t need jumps, drops, or highly technical rock gardens.
Look for relatively smooth singletrack with lots of turns, small climbs, descents, roots, and changing surfaces.
Then ride.
A cyclocross bike makes relatively simple mountain bike trails much more interesting.
You start learning where the tires lose traction.
You learn to move your body around the bike.
You learn to look ahead.
You learn how much speed you can carry into a corner.
You learn when to brake.
And one of the most important things you learn is how to accelerate after something slows you down.
Corner.
Accelerate.
Small climb.
Accelerate.
Loose section.
Accelerate.
Switchback.
Accelerate.
That’s cyclocross.
You’re combining bike handling and repeated accelerations without having to create an artificial workout.
Should You Go to a Weekly Cyclocross Practice?
Yes.
If you have access to one, a weekly cyclocross practice can be one of the most valuable sessions you do during the season.
You don’t have to turn every practice into a race.
In fact, you probably shouldn’t.
A good cross practice gives you something that’s difficult to reproduce alone: other riders.
You learn to follow someone else’s wheel through a corner.
You see different lines.
You practice passing.
You feel pressure from someone behind you.
You enter corners with riders around you.
You practice starts next to other racers.
And you can watch riders who are technically better than you.
Local practices and clinics are commonly recommended as a way to learn and refine cyclocross-specific skills.
If your local practice includes a short race at the end, great.
Just remember why you’re there.
You’re practicing.
Don’t Turn Every Cross Practice Into Another Hard Workout
This is particularly important if you’re racing every weekend.
You already have plenty of intensity.
Sunday’s cyclocross race was hard.
Another race is coming Saturday or Sunday.
You probably don’t need to turn Wednesday cross practice into a 60-minute threshold workout.
Instead, make skills the priority.
Ride the technical sections.
Practice starts.
Work on barriers.
Follow better riders through corners.
Do a few short hot laps.
Then stop.
You should leave feeling like you improved your cyclocross skills, not like you need three days to recover.
That’s especially important for masters athletes.
Your recovery resources are limited, and every training session has a cost.
Skills practice can improve your racing without creating the same physiological stress as another hard interval session.
A Simple Weekly Cyclocross Skills Session
You don’t need two hours.
Thirty to 45 minutes can accomplish a lot.
Start with 10 minutes of easy riding and dismounts and remounts, going very slowly at start. It’s kind of like a dance. Walk, swing your leg over onto the pedal, clip in. Swing your leg behind you, step down, unclip and step forward.
Spend about 10 minutes on one skill: corners, off-camber, barriers, or sand.
Then do four to six starts with full recovery.
Finish with several short laps of a mini-course where you combine the skill you’ve been practicing with accelerations.
One week might emphasize cornering.
The next could emphasize barriers.
Another might focus on off-cambers.
But don’t abandon the fundamentals because you’ve already practiced them.
Keep coming back to them.
Masters Cyclocross Racers Should Practice the Basics
It’s tempting to watch elite cyclocross and think you need to bunny hop barriers or somehow float effortlessly through a sand pit.
You probably don’t.
Most of us will get more benefit from doing ordinary things really well.
Corner smoothly.
Brake effectively.
Choose good lines.
Dismount confidently.
Get over the barriers.
Remount smoothly.
Clip in.
Accelerate.
Make good decisions.
Repeat.
That’s the foundation of good cyclocross racing.
And those skills don’t automatically appear because you’re fit.
They have to be practiced.
Three Things You Should Know About Cyclocross Skills
1. Fitness can’t make up for poor technique forever.
If you’re constantly sprinting to close gaps after corners, barriers, and technical sections, you’re spending energy that a smoother rider gets to save.
2. Practice the basics every week.
Cornering, starts, dismounts, barriers, remounts, and acceleration don’t require hours of extra training. Thirty to 45 minutes of focused practice can make a difference.
3. Practice skills before you need them in a race.
Go to cyclocross practice. Set up cones in a field. Ride your cross bike on appropriate mountain bike trails. Make technical riding a regular part of your training rather than hoping race day will teach you everything.
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Paul Warloski is a:
- USA Cycling Level 1 Advanced Certified Coach
- RRCA Running Coach
- Training Peaks Level 2 Coach
- RYT-200 Yoga Instructor
- Certified Personal Trainer
- Certified Nutrition Advisor
