I know it's the middle of summer, and many of you might be struggling just to get through the rest of your road or mountain bike season. The thought of starting another season and racing through the fall and winter might be more than you can bear right now. But for many others, cyclocross has become the focus of their racing, or at least as important as the racing they do the rest of the year. Since July tends to be the time that many riders are feeling run down and over trained, as we've discussed in other articles, it's a good time for a break and a restart. For 'cross-specific riders, this is the time to plan and periodize your 'cross season.First, of course, you have to identify ...

Cyclocross is hard, plain and simple. There are very few sports that require the same level of intensity from start to finish over the course of an hour as a cyclocross event, where you're trying to perfom at maximum output for the entire duration, combined with technique that requries a high level of skill and responding to unpredictiable scenarios, while still also thinking critically and making tactical decisions, too.Some might argue that like cyclocross, a 40K time trial also lasts about an hour, and requires the maximum effort possible over that time. This is true, in terms of generally defining the effort as "as hard as you can go for an hour." What's different about cyclocross, ...