Thread by @jens_dekker

This is probably going to be a long one. The #CXWorldCup went to Italy this weekend to try out racing on snow. Was it a success? Is this the direction that the sport of cyclocross is headed, or will it be a one-off? #ValdiSole #CXcoursereviews 1/23

First: the venue is the small town of Vermiglio, at an altitude of 1200 metres on the slopes of the Passo del Tonale (of Giro fame) with just over a thousand inhabitants. It seems to exist mainly to serve cross country skiing. 2/23

The winter sports season hasn’t really started yet, so this was the ideal moment for a ski resort to host a CX race. It’s a town in a valley between 2 mountains, so there’s a small river, and a bit of flat land around it, which is where the race takes place. 3/23

The course is mostly quite flat, but never completely flat. There is only 1 big climb and descent, but the rest does go up and down a little everywhere, which means there aren’t any fully flat bits. Because of the snow those smaller climbs were challenging enough. 4/23

Rules, then: The start was not fully straight, but I’m willing to let that slide, that very gentle bend wasn’t going to cause any crashes, and it was long and wide enough. The finish straight, however, wasn’t nearly long enough. 5/23

It’s hard to measure because lots of landmarks I’d usually use were obscured by snow, but I’ve measured at 60 metres, and that’s generous. Frankly, this isn’t enough for a World Cup, there’s no room to overtake on the asphalt, 6/23

Which means that riders have to take risks to enter the asphalt ahead. Arguably, this was part of the reason for Marianne Vos’ crash in the final lap. She was forced to take risks to get ahead. This should be changed somehow for a next edition. 7/23

But it’s not easy to change, the road goes up and down slightly, and we also can’t have a downhill finish. There also needs to be room for the finish installations, but where there’s a will there’s a way. It’s not the biggest issue, though. 8/23

Next, the location of the pits wasn’t ideal. One loop of 1.6km, one of 1.2km. The shorter loop was also faster, which meant one loop of just over 3 minutes and one of just over 5 (Hermans’ Strava). Not great, not too terrible, but surprising, because it wasn’t necessary. 9/23

There seemed to be more than enough room to organise it differently. But these are all minor issues. There wasn’t a major disaster as far as I could see, and that is impressive given that it was all set-up in snow, in a new location. Kudos. 10/23

Next: Opinions. This is going to take a while, because outside of the race, there is a larger discussion to be held about the future of the sport. Firstly, the race itself was good. I would’ve expected a more slippery and fast surface, based on earlier snow cx, 11/23

But that wasn’t the case here. Aside from some minor points where it wasn’t, the snow was shovelled aside so that only a few centimetres remained, just enough to not have the tires touch the grass, but not enough to make it unrideable. 12/23

The interesting thing is that the surface was actually different between different sections. Especially the straight before the big climb stood out as having deep ruts. I don’t know if that was done on purpose, but it made the course interesting. 13/23

One thing that I found even more interesting was that they actually built a small off camber turn (just before pit 2) on a man-made snow hill, made up of snow shovelled to the side of the course. This opens up a lot of possibilities. 14/23

Think of banked turns made of snow, or really any other feature. If there’s enough snow around, and the organisation has the machines, there’s a lot of possibilities here. I just hope this idea won’t get exploited to make ridiculous features. 15/23

In essence, it was a good race. There weren’t any major problems, it wasn’t too hard, too easy, or too slippery. It opens up more possibilities for the sport, and its developement. If it’s well done, a purpose-built snow race is just as much CX as any other. 16/23

The only thing I’m scared of is that the UCI will use the Olympics and the IOC’s snow/ice rule to transform cyclocross into snow-cycling. The best part of cyclocross is the different conditions, that includes snow, and we should have more of that, 17/23

But there’s more to the sport than just a bunch of snow. We need to hold on to the variety that the sport brings. The ideal model, I think, would be if there were 2 World Cups (and maybe a few other races) in these almost-definitely-snowy places. 18/23

And also 1 or 2 extra races in places and at times where it is possible to encounter snow, think Scandinavia, northern North America, Switzerland, Czechia, even further into Eastern Europe. Maybe even Japan or Russia in the future. 19/23

But these races should be supplemented by Koksijde, Namur, Besancon, etc. Those changing conditions, no 2 races being the same, that’s what makes cyclocross special, even if the most important race will be held in the snow. 20/23

I hope the IOC snow/ice rule will be interpreted as ‘can be held on snow and ice,’ rather than ‘has to be held on snow or ice,’ because that could mean the Olympics could be with or without snow. That is, if it does go Olympic, which is of course still a question. 21/23

Regardless, I think this race was a success. It looked good, we got good racing, but it wasn’t too extreme. It was still cyclocross. There weren’t any exceptional course building decisions, but that isn’t necessary, because every turn is a challenge in snow. 22/23

Conclusion: A good showcase for cyclocross, and a challenging but balanced course that looked good as well. It would even be good without snow, I believe.
Rating: 9/10
UCI rules broken: 2 (5.1.021 , 5.1.029)
23/23