By Jeremy Dunn • 28th January 2012 • Posted in Team
The world championships kick off this weekend in Belgium, the one event that everyone looks forward to all year long. Sure, the mountain bike worlds is a big deal, as is the version that happens on the track. Even the road equivalent seems to get fans excited. But cyclocross is happening right here, right now. Up for grabs, a set of precious rainbow-colored stripes emblazoned on the iconic white skinsuit that every elite cyclocross racer dreams of stepping into this weekend.
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By Jeremy Dunn • 21st January 2012 • Posted in Team
Rapha-FOCUS racer Julie Krasniak checks in with a short, personal recap of her recent Cyclocross World Cup race in Zolder, her first in Belgium. Julie spent the majority of her first season of cross in the US, competing in USGP events, Cross Crusade and even getting in some time in the Los Angeles sun. But her return to European soil has proven difficult. During a week known as Christmas Cross, Julie was reintroduced to the dark and dreary conditions that can be a feature of the European cross scene. Having raced in both the Plzen and Tabor World Cup events in the Czech Republic, where she finished 25th and 24th respectively, how would she fare in Belgium?
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By Slate Olson • 10th January 2012 • Posted in Team
Expectations can make your bicycle very, very heavy.
The expectations for cyclocross’s US National Championships in Madison, Wisconsin were that the weather would be a wintry mess, that Katie Compton and Zach McDonald would stand apart from their respective fields and that Jeremy Powers would again find a way to podium, but not win. Fortunately they were only half right.
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By Jeremy Dunn • 6th January 2012 • Posted in Team
Anything can happen when it comes to the National Championships. The form of the top racers in the US has gotten better as the weeks have progressed, which will make the battles for top ten spots in both the Women's and Men's Elite Races ones to watch this weekend. Madison, Wisconsin plays host to the event but if you are elsewhere in the country, make sure to tune in over at cyclingdirt.org who will broadcast the event live. We might be a little too biased over here at Rapha to make truly objective picks but we’re pretty certain that the characters below all going to be fighting for the top spots. Add your thoughts in the comments section below.
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By Jeremy Dunn • 15th December 2011 • Posted in Team
This past weekend was the final weekend of USGP racing in Bend, Oregon. The race moved from the venue in Portland where it lived for the last few years to the former National Championship course in Bend, Oregon. As far as Team Rapha-FOCUS is concerned we could not have asked for a better weekend. Jeremy Powers won both days and along the way clinched the overall. Zach McDonald did the same with the U23 category and rode himself straight into the win as well. Both Chris Jones and Julie Krasniak had awesome weekends as well — Chris pulled in an 8th and a 4th respectively while Julie was 4th on both days.
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By Jeremy Dunn • 6th December 2011 • Posted in Team
A last minute venue change and Los Angeles's downtown Historic Park became the site of Dorothy Wong's LACX race. The best way to describe Wong's effect on the racing scene would be to use what would become the weekend's announcer CoolAssMike's catch phrase when introducing the podium "We will now enter the mind of Dorthy Wong." There was a great start to the weekend with number pickup at LA's newest bike shop Golden Saddle Cyclery. Situated right in the heart of cool, next to Dangerbird Records and The Pablove Foundation and down the street from Intelligentsia's first LA location in Silverlake. That is a lot of cool situated in about two city blocks. The guys from Golden Saddle were on hand to offer fans and racers a brief intro of what was to come over the weekend — drinking, non-stop heckling and a mashing of the new and old styles of racing — after all we did have both Zach McDonald and Tim Johnson on the course at the same time later in the weekend.
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By Jeremy Dunn • 3rd December 2011 • Posted in Team
Three days of racing started last weekend in Iowa City, Iowa with a race under the lights. The days of winter have become incredibly short and continue to grow shorter as we move into December. By the middle of the afternoon on the Friday after Thanksgiving the powerful lights which lined the course had sprung to life and were starting to hide the long shadows and cyclocross racers were rubbing in their embrocations tightening their helmet straps and getting ready to race. Julie Krasniak and Chris Jones were there to see what three days of UCI racing would bring and over the course of the weekend would experience both the extreme highs and lows that are associated with this sport that we so love.
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