More Rapha Cyclocross

Photos by Dave Chiu

The world of Rapha Cyclocross has been, as they say over here "blowing up." This is a good thing apparently and with a new Cyclocross Collection and an amazingly talented group of riders via the Rapha-FOCUS Professional Cyclocross Team to back them up we have kicked off the year to a fantastic start. Take a look through this little update to see what the team is up to (World Cups, Big Wins!) as well as the Rapha Facebook Cyclocross Competition (New Theme, New Prizes from Chris King) and a few fantastic videos to whet your Cyclocross appetite. The fantastic photography this week comes from our web-whiz Dave Chiu, who, aside from taking great photos helps keep the Team RF site up to date. Check out his Tumblr for more of his photography.

_{Jeremy Powers wears the Cross Winter Cap while warming up at Gloucester}

A portion of the Rapha-FOCUS team have traveled to the Czech Republic to participate in the first two World Cup Cyclocross races of the year. Both Jeremy Powers and Julie Krasniak will start out the year at Plzen and be joined next week by Chris Jones and Zach McDonald. Powers has been tearing up cross courses around the country here with wins at both the Great Brewers GP of Gloucester and last weekend on day two of the USGP race in Fort Collins, Colorado. The UCI themselves posted this update to their site and even though they got Mr. Powers team wrong, we are willing to forgive them because of their kind words of encouragement and we totally agree that he will be one to watch this weekend. But keep an eye out for Zach when he gets over there as well, his particular style of ripping up the course as well as the competitors will suit the racing in Czech. If the crybaby attitude of some of the "men" of the peloton here carries over to the broader Worlds scene he should have a good time with them.

Watch the races Sunday through Pro Cycling Live's Livestream.

_{Zach McDonald takes the Shimano-NEPCX U23 Jersey}

Did you know that Jeremy has his own internet TV show called Behind the Barriers? We are guessing that you did, but just in case you did not check out Episode Two from this year's edition of the show.

And while we are on the video tip take a look at what is going on with CyclingDirt. "Who's #1" is the question on everyone's mind come Wednesday morning. There was a little bit of confusion earlier as to whether or not Powers could/would/should deserve this prestigious title, but all those thoughts have been squashed with this weeks edition. Take a look:

Watch more video of Who's #1? North America Cyclocross Rankings 2011/2012 on cyclingdirt.org

Facebook Cyclocross Photo Competition

_{photo by Robert Kristoff}

Week One of the Facebook competition has completely wrapped up. Robert Kristoff won with the most votes on both the Rapha Facebook Page and in the comments section of the Rapha Blog. His photo does a great job of exemplifying what we love about cross, the camaraderie, the gear and definitely what it takes to pull off one of these races, everything jammed into one spot. To see some more of Robert's Cycloross photography check out this feature from the Massachusetts local Hamilton-Wenham Patch it also features one of our dear friends and Rapha Continental builder Christopher Ighleheart.

The competition that has been running this week (October 10th - 16th) is in the theme based around that of Team Rapha-FOCUS. The idea behind this is that the photos could feature anything to do with the team, their riders, the gear or some further reaching idea that we can barely grasp right now. Next week (October 17 - 23) the theme for the competition will be "Cyclocross Gear." Again, we would like to open it up to you to see what you can come up with but to incentivize this competition we have teamed up with our pals over at Chris King to offer you a very special prize - a Chris King Bottom bracket - in keeping with the idea of gear we thought that this would be a great way to start or add to your Cyclocross Gear. The Chris King Precision Components Facebook Page is now up and running so take a minute to "like" them as well and check out what they have going on over that way.

_{The Women's Wind Jacket spotted on the Gloucester cross course.}

Crosstober Fest October 22 & 23rd

The final piece to this equation today is that of Crosstober fest. If you are in Germany make sure that you do not miss this festival of Cross Bikes presented by Crema Cycles. Here it is in their words : As announced via Facebook earlier in the week, Rapha is proud to be present at next weekend's Crosstober spectacular in the Allgäu, Germany. With cross clinics and cross racing on the Saturday, followed by the Rapha Cross Fondo on the Sunday, there'll be plenty going on all weekend. To register and for more information, please see: CremaCross