Curry, Delmue take top honors at Bobcat Classic cyclocross race

By SEAN FORBES Chronicle Sports Writer

It all began a century ago in a European pasture.

SEAN SPERRY/CHRONICLE Cyclocross rider Kristian Miller plummets toward the ground after taking an obstacle head-on as Jay Rutherford, right, negotiates the dirt pile. At least that’s how Nathan Phillips, Saturday’s Bobcat Classic race director, describes the start of cyclocross racing.

“It started in farmers’ fields in Belgium in the early 1900s,” Phillips said. “It started before mountain biking, for road cyclists to train,” especially during the fall and winter off-season.

For cyclocross, or ’cross as the name is often shortened, racers compete on what looks like a road bike n larger frame, skinny tires and curved, drop handlebars.

“It’s basically a road bike,” Jason Delmue, the men’s category 4 race winner, said, “but it’s got a little bit extra clearance for tires that are a little bit fatter, and then with traction. And it’s got cantilever brakes.”

The wider style of brake adds more clearance as well, ensuring that mud and other course debris hinder a racer as little as possible.

A standard cyclocross race is based more on time than distance. A race lasts for one hour, a short enough time to be considered basically a sprint. Laps on a typical course last between roughly five to eight minutes and each course has its own unique set of obstacles and terrain features.

“The hardest things you can imagine riding over,” Phillips says, “that’s what it is. That makes it interesting.”

This on-and-off the bike style of racing also traces its origins to the farmers’ fields, where sometimes riders encountered sections that simply couldn’t be ridden. That tradition has been carried into modern course design.

Barriers include natural and artificial features n from dirt mounds and boards placed vertically across the race course that racers must jump over to deep mud and water. Though the Bobcat Classic didn’t include one, staircases are also common obstacles.

“The cool part is,” Phillips said, “is that you’re tired, you’re very tired and you’re going as fast as you can right into things that if you don’t get off your bike in the right time your going to just run right into it. And it happens all the time. It’s one of the most difficult sports.”

Cyclocross is also one of the most popular spectator sports in cycling.

“Because the races are in town, usually,” Delmue said, “fans can come, it’s easy for people to get there. Because it’s laps, the racers pass the spectators like six or eight times a race instead of like on a road race where they go 60 miles out.

“It’s the most fun, that’s probably why it’s growing the most.”

Saturday’s race, hosted by the MSU cycling team, was a maze of orange flags and caution tape, outlining the course winding through the fields at the Bozeman Softball Complex. The course’s surfaces included gravel, dirt, mud, grass and asphalt.

The Classic began with the men’s category 4 race and a sprint to the first

obstacle: a mound of loose sand and dirt. The first racer over the mound earned a $10 bonus prize. Luckily there was no stipulation requiring the rider to remain on the bike while crossing the mound, since the leader of the pack took the first spill of the day as the skinny tires got mired, stopping the bike and pitching the rider.

The remainder of the category 4 race saw Delmue, a member of Bozeman’s G.A.S./Intrinsik cycling team, pull away from the pack. Using the flat stretch on the north side of the course to pad his lead, Delmue added another win to his first season of ’cross racing.

The day’s second race, the men’s category 1, included more speed and a photo-finish n for second place.

Bozeman’s John Curry, also a member of the G.A.S./Intrinsik team, took home top honors, as he has done with many of the races in the cyclocross series this season.

“I think maybe the second or third lap,” Curry recounted of when he took the race lead. “Geoff Proctor was leading into this back side run up and he decided to try to ride it. I decided to run it. He kind of bobbled it a little bit and that gave me a path to run by him. I got a gap then and I just put my head down for a lap and really went hard.”

Despite dropping his chain after running a couple obstacles, Curry was able to pull away from the pack to build a substantial lead.

Impressive as Curry’s ride was, the excitement came in the battle for second place.

In the final sprint, Proctor narrowly held off Alex Lussier, pushing his bike forward to cross the finish line half a tire length ahead.

Proctor, riding for Helena’s MT Velo team, added a touch of American cyclocross celebrity to the event. A teacher at Helena High School, Proctor is a coach with the national cyclocross program.

“I’m primarily responsible for the younger guys, the juniors and the U23s,” Proctor said. “I coach the national team camp in Belgium every Christmas for two weeks and that’s in preparation for the world championships.”

The camp is designed to help American athletes garner important competition experience at the higher levels in Europe. This year’s world championship will be held in Holland in January.

Like the European racing scene, cyclocross here seems to have developed its own atmosphere and character, complete with spectators and cowbells.

The close-knit community that has formed around the Montana series can be seen by watching the races. Spectators yelled encouragement to racers by name and even the racers had something to say to each other, like Cory Hardy, who good-naturedly tried to get the man in front of him to slow down, shouting ahead:

“Hold on, I want to talk to you.”

Results

Category 1/2/3

Men

1. John Curry, GAS/Intrinsik; 2. Geoffrey Proctor, MT Velo; 3. Alexandre Lussier, GAS/Intrinsik; 4. Brad Morgan, GAS/Intrinsik; 5. William Martin, Muleterro; 6. Jared Nelson, Park City Daimler Chrysler Jeep; 7. John Fiore, MontanaCyclocross.com; 8. Karl Vanderwood, MT Velo; 9. Troy Kindred, MT Velo; 10. Andrew Genco, Drunkcyclist.com; 11. Troy Scherer, GAS/Intrinsik; 12. Tomas Dumbrovsky, GAS/Intrinsik

Category 4

Men

1. Jason Delmue, GAS/Intrinsik; 2. Jay Rutherford, MSU Cycling; 3. Guy Mackensie, GAS/Intrinsik; 4. Cory Hardy, Muleterro; 5. Eric Horn, Muleterro; 6. Rich Shattuck, Muleterro; 7. Rich Shertzes, unattached; 8. Kristian Miller, MSU Cycling

Master

Men A

1. William Cochran, Rad Racing NW; 2. John Weyhrich, 5 Valley Velo; 3. Sten Hertsens, Muleterro

Men B

1. Chris Jorgensen, unattached; 2. Colin Miner, unattached

Junior

Men

1. Bridger Fiore, unattached

Women

Category 3

1. Lisa Curry, GAS/Intrinsik

Category 4

1. Tracy Thomas, unattached; 2. Jenny Zickovich, Muleterro; 3. Clarrisa Were, unattached

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