Intro to KVC and cyclocross

Cyclocross is a sport of give and take. You give it your all and it tit can take it right back. It is forgiving at times but humbling and down right brutal on other accounts. The cross hook line sinker for me was the 2001 season when I went to watch cyclocross nationals in Baltimore. I watched local legend Skip Menard take on the national field of heavy hitters like Todd Wells,Mark Gullickson ,Jon Page, T Johnson.. the list goes on.






Up to that point I had raced a few local cross races using my mountain bike, but I wasn't quite hooked yet. I will never forget the crowds with all their energy and how hard the racing looked. Another memory that sticks with me is a popular section of the course that fans placed a couch beside a off camber barrier section for cheering. Everyone was going ballistic encouraging riders as they suffered. Jeremiah Bishop was bunny hoping the barrier and the decibel level increased and so did the consumption of adult beverages. It was the crass culture of cycling that drew me so close.
I dabbled for a few seasons mixing the cross with mountain biking and some very unsuccessful road racing attempts all under Kirk and the First Capital Velo name. In 2005 Dan Warnick invited me to the Hunt Valley Bicycle team to focus primarily on cyclocross. It was a solid run program and I had some of my most successful years under the program. Eventually the team fizzled away and I tried to form a small team of local guys but realized that it just wasn't working out for various reasons.
Fast forward to 2011 and the combined efforts of many to revive the KVC(keystone Velo club) the team includes mostly all familiar faces that i have know for at least a decade and some are new, but I feel like this is a pretty solid team and hope to make our mark on the Cyclocross scene. If you're ever interested in checking out one of our races let us know and we can give you the details. Who knows maybe you'll find yourself getting hooked as well.









Post added by guest blogger Sean Mealey

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