Pappa T

I have been racing cross since 1997, back then Robert Linden was just getting into it, and there was an Ann Arbor series that was kinda cool. The courses were lame, flat with a couple small run ups here and there, no off camber stuff but Pontiac lake had a really cool course through the camp ground area, with two wicked run ups and three or four sets of barriers. Prior to 1997 there was only one cyclocross race a year and that was in Somerset, Michigan near Jackson. Only Wolverine roadies showed up for it usually. The Wolverine's also were the first club to bring cyclocross to Michigan as a training tool, the first State championships was held at the Dorais Velodrome around 1977 or so, Bernie Clincke was crowned champ. Bernie's Dad, a Belgian immigrant, built the barriers and made poor Bernie warm up for the event by riding from his home in Utica to the Dorais Velodrome located on outerdrive and mound, in Detroit. Bernie rode a modifie d road bike, with "special" cyclocross tubulars ordered straight from Belgium, he most likely was the only guy at the race with cyclocross specific tires. The flying rhino's also held a couple of cyclocross races at bloomer park in the early 90's, these races usually included the wooden stairs near the stone pavilion (all 124 of them.) I never raced in these early cross races, I missed them by a couple years.

I race on a couple of Orbea cross bikes, the younger of the two was the proto-type showed at interbike in 2002. Dave Koesel (Felt's National Marketing Director) snagged it for me when he was an Orbea rep. It is set up with an old Winwood carbon cross fork, Ultegra 9 speed rear shifter, Ritchey Cranks, Single 42th chain ring, with Sram 12-26 cassette, Spooky Canti brakes, and Ksyrium wheels, with Verdastein knobbies. The bike creaks and rattles but generally stays together, when I run tubulars I like tufo prestige 32's for most conditions. The other is set up with an Alpha Q fork, and truvative cranks with a double 46-39, and 11-25. The newer Orbea's have a lower bottom bracket height, so my favorite one is the old prot-type as it has almost 11 inches from center of the bb to floor clearance, you can peddle through any corner with this baby and not scratch a peadal.

Pretty cool..thanks Tony thats a cool piece of cross history most of todays guys dont know about.