Cyclo-cross is a form of bicycle racing. Races take place off-road, typically in the autumn and winter, and consists of many laps of a short (2–3 km) course featuring wooded trails, grass, steep hills, and obstacles requiring the rider to dismount, jump the barrier and remount. The sport is administered by the Union Cycliste Internationale; it began in the 1940s and the first world championship was held in Paris in 1950.
Cyclo-cross is related to mountain bicycle racing and many of the best cyclo-cross riders are also stars of mountain biking. But cyclo-cross bicycles are similar to racing bicycles: lightweight, with narrow tires. They have to be lightweight because competitors need to carry their bicycle to overcome barriers or rises too steep to climb in the saddle. The sight of competitors struggling up a muddy slope with bicycles on their shoulders is the classic image of the sport.
A cyclo-cross competitor is allowed to use three bicycles in a race. While the rider is on the course gumming up one bicycle with mud, his or her teammates work quickly to clean, repair and oil the others.
Cyclocross races send riders across uneven terrain, up sharp inclines, around abrupt turns and over obstructions in a series of short laps around a course created for the event.
Cyclocross did not catch on as quickly in the United States, where it stayed on the fringe until the late ’80s.
Cyclocross participants ride laps that are rarely much longer than a mile, so friends and family see them go by multiple times.Within an hour, the race is over, the rider with the greatest number of laps wins, and the participants rejoin their families.
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