Afternoon Round Up (September 9)

Here is what’s happening in pro cyclocross right now:

As you probably already know, the Telenet Fidea team traveled to Boulder, Colorado, en masse to get in some altitude training before the season officially begins. For instance, here’s Tom Meeusen during a “recovery ride” at Valmont bike park, last week:

Afternoon recovery ride @bikevalmont

A photo posted by Tom Meeusen (@tommeeusen) on Sep 1, 2015 at 7:51pm PDT

  Unlike Telenet-Fidea, the BKCP-Corendon team of Mathieu van der Poel is being a bit more sneaky. They seem to be infiltrating the U.S. borders one by one as the eve of CrossVegas approaches. Vincent Baestaens showed up at Ellison Park this past weekend, taking the Day 2 win on Sunday.

And now, we have just confirmed that Wietse Bosmans, the up and coming 23 year old who is fresh off of two wins at the QianSen Trophy races in China, will be racing in Pennsylvania this weekend at Nittany CX.

Highlights from one of @bosmanswietse’s wins at Qiansen Trophy race in China. Link to full video at CXHairs.com. A video posted by In The Crosshairs (@cxhairs) on Sep 2, 2015 at 6:00am PDT

Bosmans’ and Baestaens’ aforementioned team leader, MvdP, finally got the go ahead to resume training after his minor knee surgery following a crash two weeks ago at the Tour de l’Avenir. MvdP sliced open his knee that had to later be cut back open so debris could be removed. His doctor had him off the bike until this week. Story here: www.nieuwsblad.be/sportwereld

However, once on road things didn’t go great. MvdP reported feeling pain while running and a too high heart rate while riding. He stopped running after ten minutes with cramps. Full story: www.nieuwsblad.be/sportwereld/cnt/dmf20150909_01857682

For those who like data, here is MvdP’s Strava file for that first ride: www.strava.com/activities/387853844

Not to state the obvious, but MvdP’s form coming into the CrossVegas World Cup will be the biggest question mark in the race. It is among one of the topics we will discuss with some great guests next Monday on episode two of Crosshairs Radio.

Lars van der Haar is also in North America ahead of CrossVegas. LvdH thought it would be a good plan to get some fast training on the road by racing the Tour of Alberta. But the nasty weather conditions conspired against him and after gutting it out for almost a week, LvdH threw in the towel, saving his desire for rain and cold for the SuperPrestige and Bpost Troffee races later in the year.

Finally, the Svens unveiled new kits and new bikes as the Crelan AA Drink team prepares for its laatste ronde. Crelan has sponsored Nys since 2008. Full story here:www.sport.be/nl/wielrennen/veldrijden/article.html?Article_ID=740592

Along with the new bike and kits, who knows what other surprises Sven has in mind for his debut at CrossVegas.

Finally, if you haven’t already, check out our new cyclocross podcast, Crosshairs Radio. Each week we will catch up with the pros racing in US and Europe to see how they fared over the weekend. First episode with Meredith Miller and Mark McConnell is posted. Next episode will be up Monday. As mentioned above, it will be a CrossVegas and season preview and should be a good one.

Show page is here: crosshairsradio.libsyn.com/

iTunes is here: itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/crosshairs-radio/id1037733996?l=en&mt=2

Direct feed is here: crosshairsradio.libsyn.com/rss

And if you’re looking for something completely different, check out the Kids Don’t Follow Podcast where we try to stop talking about bikes for an hour and talk music instead.

That’s it for now. Please send any questions, comments or tips to: feedback@cxhairs.com.

Talk soon.