How to Race in Mud on a Cyclocross Bike

Video Transcript

"MICKEY DENONCOURT: Riding in the mud is probably one of the defining features of cyclocross as well. To go quick in the mud or stay on your bike in the mud even, one of the big things that you want to do is you want to ride a slightly larger gear than what you would normally ride on dry terrain because the larger gears, your wheel spins a little bit slower. It's less likely to hook up and put more pressure on the knobs of the tires. It helps it dig in and keep going. When you're cornering in the mud, you really need to be able to effectively move your body left and right to get your knobs to really hook up. There's no mud here unfortunately or probably fortunately since I don't have to wash my bike quite as much when I'm done, but the other thing to think about with mud is tire selection. I am running file tread tires today which are great in this hard-packed sand that I'm riding in. But in really, really sloppy mud, these tires actually work better than a more heavily treaded tire because they clear the mud. And so if your tire just clogs up in mud because it has tight knobs, it's just mud on mud. That's not traction. At least with this, even though I don't have any knobs, in the deep mud, at least I got rubber on mud which is going to be a little bit more traction, a little bit more like forward momentum than you'll have otherwise."