How to Finish a Cyclocross Race

Video Transcript

"MICKEY DENONCOURT: In the suffering game, nothing is really more painful in cross than the start than the finish. If you're doing well and you're in contention for something, that last lap or two of the race, that last 12, 6 to 12 minutes can be incredibly, incredibly painful. It's worth it, though. I mean, you've put in all this time training. You've gone all the way to this event. It's worth it to put yourself on the line trying to really finish strong so there's--oftentimes, cross racers stay in small groups. If the group that you're in looks like it's going to come down to a sprint finish, it's good to make sure to mark the person who looks like they're the best sprinter. You never want to lead. You never want to be the first person into a sprint. And then it's good to know some techniques about sprinting like probably maybe the only time you'll even get into the drops in a cross race is when you're sprinting. So in the drops, get low, get far forward, get nice and narrow and then I'm going to show you a technique called a bike throw, which is sort of you move your weight back and throw your bike forward to get across the finish line ahead of somebody and it gets you that extra inch that you need some time. So I'm going to come through and sort of demonstrate what a throw looks like. So, you know, I'm sprinting. I'm over the bars. I'm going fast and then I just throw the bike forward like that just as hard as I can and that's often--ask anybody who's ever won a sprint and they probably got it by having a better throw, being able to throw their bike farther than the other guy."