Racing in the snow
"Super fun”.
“It’s hard: stay relaxed, breathe deeply. It’s not faster to go full gas, it’s faster to keep moving.”
“Loose upper body, light on handlebars.”
“Try to float over : weight back, pedal hard, look far ahead.”
Those are the notes I wrote to myself after the pre-ride on Friday. The temperature had been around 3 degrees Celsius, and the snow was LOOSE. It felt like riding in sand. It was slow-going, you had to pedal really hard to keep moving, and the conditions were not very slippery. You could really get into the ruts at full speed to rip into the corners.
I liked these conditions. As hard as it was, I felt like I was riding pretty well in that deep snow and I felt confident with my chances if the race looked like that.
Fast forward 12 hours.
We woke up Saturday morning and suddenly, the temps had dropped to -10 Celsius. They were calling for a high of 0C during the day. We got on course for the 30min window pre-ride before the race, and the course could not have been different. They had groomed most to the course and it had frozen overnight. Suddenly, what had been a slow grind technical course became a super fast snowy highway…and an ice rink in some places. The run-up became a rideable climb. Everything was different. In some way, the course became easier, but at the same time, I finished the pre-ride and I had crashed at least 4 times hard.
My first thought was: “It will melt and get back to yesterday’s conditions”. This, I believe, was my insecurity talking. It was wishful thinking. I had felt so good and confident yesterday, and now, I felt like this course became more rideable for everyone and that I had suddenly lost my edge. Luckily, I caught myself pretty quickly. “Stop telling yourself stories Magh. This is was the race will be like. It is not getting any warmer. Adapt, and find a way to make this work.”
Calm through chaos
So I got to work focusing on how to approach the race. I decided the best way forward was to stay in control, go fast when I could, be safe enough to not crash all over the place, but be fierce enough to make passes. Calm was my main key word. Just before the start, as we were already lined up, I also reminded myself to stay aware, so I could react quickly to chaos around me.
The race started and I didn’t have a stellar start. It was clean, I clipped in quickly, but I wasn’t able to move up much. However, as we got to the top of the pavement before the first right-hand turn into the snow, I knew everyone would take it wide. So I stay inside and cut the turn. Already I passed some people. Then, in the second corner, I knew people might crash (I had myself ate shit at that exact spot in the pre-ride). As predicted, people crashed, but luckily I saw it coming and was able to get around.
The whole race, I was super calm. There was chaos everywhere around but I remained calm. Riders crashed in front of me, I crashed a few times, I passed some people and I got passed. In the cold, if you get panicky, it’s really hard to keep breathing, and I knew this from my poor performance at Essen last week. So being calm was key for me, every time I was descending, I was breathing deeply. If it climbed, I pedalled as hard as I could. Quickly, I found myself in 5th place. Then, I passed Manon Bakker and was in 4th. We exchanged position a few times, but when I made a mistake (while trying to bridge the gap to her) and crashed into a fence, she got a bigger gap on me. The gap fluctuated from 15 to 6 seconds, but I could never quite close it.
This course was tricky. If you went too fast, it became easy to crash, and you can’t really stand up on your bike and do a full gas attack in the snow, so I was never able to do one huge sprint to fully catch up to her. On the last lap, we suddenly saw 3rd position in sight; Silvia Persico from Italy. I clearly remembered how great it had felt to finish on the podium at that event last year, so I tried all I could to get there. Through the loud sounds of Jai! Vai! Vai! and chain saw motor from the Italian fans, the battle was on. Manon Bakker caught up to Silvia and as she did, Silvia crashed on the last corner…I got up to her as she jumped back on her bike on the pavement and we had a full on sprint for 4th place. Photo finish!
Slowing down to go faster
3 months ago, I pulled out of the race in Rochester. I decided then to put a pause to my season because I had been dealing with health issues and I was mentally struggling as well. It was a really low point for me. At that point, I decided that if I was to come back, I wanted to come back better. I’d use this crisis to address weaknesses I hadn’t addressed in a while, I wanted to work better and not more. I wanted to go back to the basics of fine tuning my craft. And I didn’t know then if I’d be able to do any races this season.
Val di Sole was the 10th round of the Cyclocross World Cup. Personally, it was my first World Cup. I came because I felt ready. It took me some time to get to a point where I felt ready enough to toe the line, it took some patience, and it took for me to change how I approach work, too accept that more wasn’t always better, and to know when it was time to actually dig deep and do more. It took a team that I’m so grateful to have the chance to work with and trust.
It’s no surprise then that I was so happy to be here in Val di Sole. I really enjoyed the pre-ride, I loved tinkering about how to dress and prepare my equipment for the cold, I loved figuring out how to go fast in these conditions. I enjoyed spending these moments with David and our friends Caitlin and Franz Bernstein. And I absolutely loved being on that start line; after not being able to toe the line in months, I really did not take this for granted.
In the end, I just freaking love this crazy sport and it felt like a privilege to be back racing at the highest level. Finishing 5th and having a great day on the bike was just the cherry on top!
This good result gives us momentum for the future, I know there is more for me to gain in terms of fitness and strength, and I’m excited for the work ahead, but this gives me confidence that I’m on the right path.
Thank you to everyone who helped me get back to this point. And thanks to the Italians who welcomed us warmly, with loud cheering and chainsaw motor noises pushing us to ride harder!
Now let’s keep going!
Ciao my friends.