Ryan Bonick

Cyclocross Year in Review (2022)

So: fun season of cross (as always) but definitely didn’t really have the results to show for it.

Season 1 (2019): Low Cat 5. Avged bottom 20%

Season 2 (2021): Catted up to 4 bc USAC mandatory is 10 races and I didn’t wanna switch mid season. Probably could have stayed in 5 tbh, idk how much they care if you’re not winning. Avged bottom 20%.

Season 3 (2022): Still cat 4. Still… bottom 20%.

Thing is, I feel like this season I felt faster than I did last season. While courses do change a little bit, there’s usually some Strava segments (& just lap times) that show I was faster. Comparing race avg / NP watts from last year vs now, I’m also up about 10W, at what’s probably a lower (measured, at least) FTP! I am faster, maybe not as much more faster as I’d hope, but still.

So I don’t know if I’m just scaling up at the same rate as all the people I’m racing against, or what. I’d be really curious to see if other races’ power profiles are similar to mine (e.g. I’m either wasting watts or failing on technical skills), or if they’re genuinely stronger than me.

Early on in the season, when I had decent call ups (really hard to do much from row 4+), I was able to get some really solid starts, getting up into the top 5-10 spots. But the problem would always be that I’d get passed (sometimes when I was losing a wheel, but usually just aggressive riders trying to move up), and at a certain point I’d be wholly unable to keep on the lead group.

Especially looking at some of my early races, I remember having massive differences between my first lap watts / pace & later laps. Being able to bring that gap down (hopefully by bringing the other laps up rather than trying to be more deliberate about pacing lol) would get me into a lot more competitive of a position, I think.

Things I’d like to do better next year:

1. Better recovery - While I was able to make it up pretty much all the steep climbs this year (barring a couple technical ones that I didn’t really attempt), I definitely felt like I was too fried to keep up with some of the other riders on the longer climbs (rather than the short, 5-20s punchy climbs). The 3-ish minute climb at one course was the absolute worst - picking off people on some of the technical portions only to have them fly by me as I slowly churned my way back up the giant hill. There were tons of straigh-ish sections that should have been great spots to put down power, but instead I was using them to recover a bit (which should happen more on like, technical sections where you can’t pedal much).

2. Cross-specific drills & practice - Feel like just spending my easy Tuesdays spinning for an hour then spending like, an hour on drills would be ideal. Practicing stuff like mounting / dismounting, sharp cornering, and getting comfortable riding on looser slippy terrain. I did this a bit this season and I think it paid off really well, but starting earlier and being a bit more deliberate about it would benefit even better. Maybe a hot lap or two so I can practice all those things while redlining?

3. Bit more running - So I did a bit of running in August, but stopped once I started having to balance interval workouts and racing every weekend. I think the problem was that I wasn’t ever able to get to a good running cadence, I feel like I stopped while still getting used to running. While running is a minority of CX races, I think being more capable of hopping off & running, whether up stairs, hills, barriers, etc. without completely imploding my heart would be pretty beneficial.

4. Higher FTP - Obviously goes without saying, but being able to recover at higher wattages would help all round. Going harder, recovering while losing less speed… obviously something that will always help.

Sorry for a bit of rambling! But figured I’d rather overanalyze & put into writing rather than forget about something in the future.

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