OFF-BEAT RACING

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31724, 6 July 1968, Page 15

OFF-BEAT RACING

Cyclo-Cross Title

Usually the winner or top contenders for a cycling event can be predicted with some confidence, if not certainty. But this is not the case for the open cyclo-cross championship being conducted by the Papanui club at Clarkville today. The 25 entrants have only 10 miles to cover—--15 circuits of a course—but none of it is on a road. Much of the distance will be covered on foot and that cycled will be a long, hard slog.

The start-finish straight is about 200 yards of a clay track, and after the mass start, the riders will enter an old rubbish pit. Probably the easiest part of the course follows—over grass and a shingly area that was once a road, and along the clay surface of a river bed for quarter of a mile.

Then the riders will climb a high stop bank, through a belt of trees, and back on to the start of the circuit again. They are not allowed to carry pumps because it is considered that, with the amount of mounting and dismounting necessary, these could become a danger by getting mixed up in wheels. Spare wheels may be left at the start-finish line, though.