You Don't Have To Worry About Your Cyclocross Remount Technique If You Never Dismount In The First Place

This past weekend, that zany style of bike racing where you have to jump on and off the bike and stuff once again came to New York City--Queens, specifically--with the annual running of the Rainey Park Cylocross event.

Just as people don't usually associate the Ozarks with bagels (sorry, couldn't help it), they also don't tend to associate New York City with cyclocross.  However, over the years we've had a cross race on Staten Island (now defunct, alas), there is a long-running practice on Randall's Island, and now with Rainey Park on the calendar you can race right there on the East River with the New York City skyline for a backdrop in a venue that's easy to access by bike or public transportation.

These days, I'm mostly retired from cyclocross, choosing mostly to rest on the laurels of my highly auspicious career:

(via Cross Results)

Alas, since I seldom do the cyclocrossing these days I no longer have a proper cyclocross bike.  This means on the rare occasions I do partake in a race I need to piece something together for the occasion, kind of like when you get invited to a wedding and realize you don't own an actual suit.  For last year's race at Rainey Park I re-configured my travel bike in singlespeed guise, thusly:

I liked the idea of riding the singlespeed race again and would have happily used this bike to do so, albeit with a much lower gear because I really screwed up in that department last year.  However, the singlespeed race was the first race of the day, and this year my older son was going to be racing as well.  Therefore I opted for a later race that would afford us time to leave home at a decent hour, allow me to get him all sorted out first, and then race myself after he was done, thus necessitating a geared bike for me.  So I decided to use the Jones Plus LWB:

I've had great results using the SWB in this capacity.  (I mean "great results" as in "the bike was great and I had a lot of fun," not as in "I won the race.")  However, the Rainey course is quite twisty owing to the diminutive size of the park (make no mistake, they make a fantastic course given what they have to work with), and I wondered if the LWB might feel unwieldy and awkward due to its ample proportions.

It did not.

As with the SWB, the Velcro-like grip was revelatory in a cyclocross context, and as stable as the handling is the bike also went around those tight corners like a tetherball.  Not only that, but I was also able to hop the barriers instead of dismounting.  In fact, for my purposes it was better than a cyclocross bike, and the only time I might have preferred one was when I carried the Jones up the stairs, since it probably weighs about twice as much as your garden variety Ridley:

But even this turned out to be a non-issue.  After a couple of laps, a bystander told me to ride up the stairs instead (people like to yell at you to do stuff when you're riding a bike like this in a cyclocross race), so the next time around I rode up the grass on the right-hand side.  The bystander then told me they meant I should ride up the actual stairs themselves, and while a better rider could probably do that on the Jones, I'm not that rider.  So for the rest of the race I just continued to ride up the grass, though afterwards I noticed someone moved the stake at the bottom so that it blocked the line (you can see this in the photo), most likely to obviate such unscrupulous behavior by others for the remainder of the day.

Anyway, the upshot of my ethically dubious line choice was that I could ride the entire course without having to lift my bicycle or even put my foot down, which no doubt had a positive impact on my finishing position.  See, on a regular cyclocross bike I would certainly have finished dead last (I may suck at riding but the running really kills me), but on the Jones I finished a few riders ahead of dead last.  Also, a photographer was kind enough to send me some photos of myself in action, including one with other riders nearby so I can pretend like I was actually in contention:

[Photo courtesy of @shatterkiss]

In reality, however, everyone rode away from me pretty quickly and most of the time it was just me, like this:

[Photo courtesy of @shatterkiss]

In all it was a great day; not only did I have lots of fun bringing up the rear on my comically oversized bicycle, but my son also lined up and successfully completed what was probably the most physically difficult undertaking of his life so far--in jeans!  I only wish they held this race every weekend, though given the work involved I suspect as far as the promoter is concerned once a year is plenty.  And even if there was a local cross race like this every weekend I'd certainly have no need for a cyclocross bike, since the Jones picks up where my road bike leaves off quite seamlessly.

If only my transitions were so seamless.