It started as an idea… actually just a word that Andy and I came up with while doing hot laps around a city park in Minneapolis, MN. It seemed to fit as we were trying to describe how much cross means to us. It was derived from the word Maniac.

Maniac
1. a raving or violently insane person; lunatic.
2. any intemperate or overly zealous or enthusiastic person: a maniac when it comes to details.

Crossniacs was to start this year as just a vision for the future. Maybe we would get T-shirts and hats and start thinking about kits for the future. Houle pushed hard for kits as did a few others. FPA stepped up and created the kick-ass kit and everyone from east to west bought into the vision and we were off.

And look what we have become.

Thanks for all of you who share the dream and passion. We will continue to grow and thrive. Look for fellow crossniacs and lets continue to grow this thing.

We have riders from east to west and everywhere in between.

Jared

I was admiring myself in the mirror and found myself counting how many scars I got from cross this year. I have 2 on each leg. Slipped clipping in, thorn bush, hit a barrier, and tripped on the steps at minnehaha. I also gots one on my shoulder caused by a skidding stop at Boom Island. Come on rockers, lets hear or see what you got.
cj

  Says it all about cross, doesn’t it? You praying Wah? Or gasping for air?

      I promised myself I’d leave it all on the course for the end of the season race. I nearly did. It was the first race I finally reserved enough time to register, get ready, and warm up. It felt good to crank to tunes and move at a less-than-frantic-pace. Course inspection revealed a very interesting twist to the normal MN state championship. As you may have read; long gravel road start to grassy twists and turns, then a long straight, back around the edge of a lake, back to party-central, over a triple barrier set, around and up the hill, then the nasty off camber 180, back down to gravel walking path, up some single track, run the stairs, around a rock, over a double barrier set, back to gravel road and repeat.While most people complimented Hollywood, the hosting promoter, I heard it was actually former Urthel team member and future crossniacs leader, Scotty Rob  who set the course up. So, credit should go where credit is due, if rumors are true. Anyways, as you also read, it was cold (as it should be for the MN state Championship.) When the sun peeked thru the clouds, it felt better, but it was cold. I lined up second row in a field of 90. My race included the state SS championship category, so the field was stack with good talent. I’ve gotten good at forcing my way into a up-front starting position. It has helped a lot and a clear distinction from last year. Anyways, whistle blows and I’ve got a great start. Top ten heading into the grassy area. SkinnySki.com pictures don’t show me up front, but I was flying. Everything felt good. Good air pressure, good legs. Just a waiting time until the lungs catch up and I can settle in and defend a great position for me. One lap down and hurting, I remind myself I’m leaving it all on the course. Harden’ the F*ck Up, right? Second lap, I start to find a groove; I cant match the speed of the SS talent, so I work at my rate for my race. And then, well quite frankly, I nearly sh*t my pants. I don’t what happened, but my stomach said, OH NO YOU DON’T!” and put the hurt on that lower stomach area. What can you do? Keep riding? Find a bathroom? I don’t care who you are-you gotta sit up, take notice of the situation. Big mental blow. Stomach settles down, and I try taking another dig and jump on someone’s wheel. Nope. Stomach says “no!”. I sit up again. I cant decide to call it quits or keep rolling. I keep rolling, but my race is over and I soft pedal it for a while. I come around that 180 on the hill and flip over. Another mental blow. Easy fall, but I wished to stay on the ground longer than I did. I see Eric coming and I soft pedal to roll with him. I think two crossniacs finishing together would be fun. So we roll, but again, the 180 sends me to the ground, second lap in a roll. Eric keeps going and does his thing. I soft pedal it to wait for Nate. And that’s fun until the stomach acts up and finally we get to finish, lapped behind the leader. Post race, stomach settles down and I search for beer, which I continued to drink well into the evening. I had a really good season. Not great. But I’m proud of how far I’ve come. And even though the season is over, Illinois’ state championships are on Dec. 9^th on the lake front, down in the loop. I mean, come on… Cross racing down in  Chi-town? ( http://www.chicrosscup.com/)On the Lake?  How can I convince Kathy? Is anyone else interested in a road trip? FPA ps.. posted pics on FPAScene.blogspot.com so you can see them better. 

My first race sporting the Crossniacs colors.
It was cold and it was wonderful, what a fun race to end the season on. Make no mistake it was hard,

and temptations lay in wait in many places, but I kept my head in the race and only took a whisky hand-up post race.

Ladric.

If anyone is looking for Tubulars, Competitive Cyclist is blowing out Mavic Carbones and SL3s…

I’ve been in 4 all out sprints this year so far racing in NC. Before moving here, I may have had 4 in my cross career. Today was another sprint finish. The course was the same as Saturday and Jason and Jeff both said that we wouldn’t let it come down to a sprint today and our goal was to bust up the pack. I rocked the hole-shot and was ready to rock. Jason was active early and attacking the field trying to bust it up. After lap 1, we were still all together. 1/2 way through the 2nd lap on the top of the grinder climb, I told the dude who won yesterday, some guy from Tennessee, to keep going as we had a gap. He drilled it and only Jason and I could go with him. He absolutely killed it and I was gasping for every ounce of energy just to hang and and he kept the hammer down for 1/2 a lap and that was the race. After that I was just hanging on the back of the break. Today I couldn’t fake it with my lack of training. I wasn’t sitting in for tactics, I was sitting in because I couldn’t work. The Wah snap was gone this weekend. 1 lap to go it was clearly going to go down to a 3-up sprint. I stayed at the back of the 2 and we hit the high school track to the finish. I moved into 2nd to take Jason’s wheel and he started sprinting and took the win and the TN guy got me at the line… 3rd place and last spot on the podium.

On the 1st lap I wasn’t paying attention and hit a pothole and heard a “snap” on the front wheel. I was hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was. After the race I inspected the Ritchey Carbon wheel and it was cracked. The price of racing spanky wheels and low pressure. The crack is small and the wheel is still true, so I’m going to ride it till the end of the season with hopes that it doesn’t explode.

jared

More pics of NVGP here

Impressive 1st season for the MN crew.. 2 top spots in B’s Cyclocross Rider of the Year results, upgrades and impressive results all around. way to represent bros. Nice work in states as well.

Put the word on the streets that Crossniacs is THE cross team to be on for 08′.

I’m a bit jealous of the season ending.. I have another month to go for the regular season and then NC has a winter season that runs the month of January.  That will be 11 months of pretty much racing every weekend. Looks like I’ll get February off for base and back at it again in March.

Just a reminder to everyone that if you need ANYTHING for your bike I can get it for ya. Crossniacs are well “hooked up” KHS frames and bikes, anything from Ritchey and anything else you may need for parts. Components, tires, pedals, etc… Just let me know what you need and Crossniacs will hook you up.

Keep the dream alive

Jared

The last race of the year! Some are happy to be done, some are not so happy, and some of us just hope it snows so we can ski. ( some are happy N8 brought an extra skin suit cause they forgot thiers)

I was glad to see the course was completely different from last year. The start was in the same spot, but that was the only time you really spent on the dirt road. I’m not great at describing courses from start to finish so I’ll give you the highlights of each lap. There wer 2 switchback sections, one which was a serious off- camber 180, a triple barrier, a double barrier, and those long ass stairs. I think the course had a bunch of corners that let you seperate yourself from the field if you were willing to risk it a little bit. They were sandy or rooty or a tiny bit off camber, just a really well put together course.

I got to the line way late and Guy let me squeeze in the front row next to him, thanks dude. Some dude, who has just as much right to the front row as anyone, was telling Guy to stop trying to edge up. This fellow always rides in mid to rear pack. I was just about to chime in when Guy looked him square in the face and said “do you think you can hang?” It was pretty funny. I just told Guy that I would hesitate 1 second at the start so he could cut out infront of me. It worked like a charm and Guy and I were both in the top 5-7 riders heading into the 1st turn. A group of 3 guys got away almost immediately and worked as a group to keep there gap. After the typical 1-2 laps of sorting out I found myself in no mans land riding in P4 about 150 yards behind the top 3 and pulling away from Guy who was behind me. What to do? Wait for Guy and try to work together or try and chase down the top trio. I decided to give it 1 suicide effort and see what happened. The good news, I was running them down. The bad news, I crashed in the off-camber 180 and lost all the ground that I had made up.Basically what happened was my hood snagged the fence and snapped my handle bars sideways. I think that about 150 people went down in that same spot yesterday. What a sweet corner. As I hopped back on and got going again I could see a group of 3-4 about to catch Guy. The rest of the race was a time trial with the lead group insight, but just out of reach if you know what I mean. Towards the end of the race I caught up to the 3rd place rider (I think he dropped his chain) and we worked together to hold off a hard chasing group. Somewhere on the final lap he dropped off and I rolled in solo taking 3rd overall and 2nd in cat3. One of those days where the legs and lungs felt good from start to finish.

Good times this year. I like the crossniacs and others are showing interest every week. Scott and FPA, we need to chat about a summer kit. I’m just gonna roll the crossniac colors all year.
cj

That was it. Everything I had left was laid out on the course yesterday for the Minnesota State CX Champs. Right now, I’m enjoying the first Sunday of sleeping in and a big batch of home made crepes for breakfast in a loooong time and it feels good. I’ve certainly earned it.

Yesterday dawned cloudy with light flurries and the temps right at freezing. I was hoping for an extra 5-10 degrees, but no luck. I got my upgrade to Cat 3 early this week, so I would be racing the second B wave at 12:35. I showed up early to register, get dressed and pre-ride. The course was much different than in the past. Lots of turns on grassy sections, bumpy-uneven grass in other parts, off-camber turns, a little bit of gravel, singletrack, and the ever (in)famous stairs. I was layered up to keep warm, but still not feeling 100% great. Back to the car to relax for a few minutes before hopping on the trainer, which I knew would be key to getting and staying warm before our start.

By the time they staged us, we were a bit behind schedule, but I was feeling better and hoping for some sunlight to open up. Strangely, the official never said “racers ready” so when the whistle blew, I (and many others) still had two feet on the ground. Not a great way to start, but I settled in mid-way through the pack of 60-70.

After three laps, I had moved up somewhere near 12th and was slowly gaining on the two riders in front of me and feeling okay. The next time I saw the lap card, though, we still had 5 to go! What? I was already 23 minutes into a 45 minute race and I’m not even half-done with the distance? One lap later, going up the stairs, my legs starting cramping bad from the cold and the effort and I knew I was in trouble. I resettled into a slightly easier rhythm for a bit, hoping I would recover before the guys behind me did. Wasn’t to be, though, and with two laps to go, I had four guys come back on me and pass and I had nothing left to stay on it.

Bell lap was a joyous sound. Even more joyous was FPA screaming at me to ride the last lap of the season like it was all I had to do. The timing was perfect because I was about to lose another position, but that war cry (if you haven’t heard it, you’ll have to believe me) was what I needed to put it down one last time. I rolled across the line after 53 minutes and was ready to collapse. According to the HR monitor, it was among the hardest efforts all year–175 ave with a 182 max.

The initial results sheet said I was 19th overall, but no clue as to where in the Cat 3 since they weren’t complete. As I looked closer, I could see that they had at least one rider place in front of me who I was almost lapping, so I’m guessing I was closer to 16th overall, which could be top 10 for Cat 3. With the challenging and exhausting week I had at school and home, I’ll take it.

Guy and CJ both had good races too with much better starts–I could see them both ahead of me, but never had what it needed to pull any closer.

Twelve races in nine weeks, almost double what I’ve done in years past. Now it’s time to recover, be lazy for few weeks, and start building again for next year.

andy