Our man ‘Rodders’ (Rod Fountain) is a pig. When I say pig I mean it in the sense of him being a ‘guinea pig’. Rod ‘The Fountain’ of knowledge is a teacher so he knows a lot of shit, though it’s mainly about History. It’s clear he knows nothing about cyclo–cross because this magazine got him to agree to spending what’s widely thought of as the most difficult hour you can do on a bike by simply promising him a custom ‘Dirt’ race top. I felt a bit sorry for him because he was entered for one of the biggest races of the season (not that he knew), round 3 of the Rapha Super–Cross series at London’s Ally Pally. After a day of ‘training’ on the wet grass, descents and stairs of South London’s Crystal Palace Park and then racing he’s now three stones lighter, has hair like his finger’s been in an electric socket and is contemplating whether he should shave or wax. All hail king Rodders, the drop bar virgin naively sporting his piss–pot and goggles, knee pads and baggies. Oh, and flat pedals. Flats!
Butch: Do you remember that show ‘In at the Deep End’?Rod: I don’t, but I think I know where you’re going with this.
What did you think when I kept winding you up about how hard cyclo–cross racing is and that you were literally ‘in it’…the ‘deep end’ that is?You mean how you water–boarded me for a week with over 50 cheery text messages like, ‘What, you’ve never ridden a cross–bike? Go and get yourself a gun because you’re f–ked’. Or, ‘Enjoy it Rodders (you’re f–ked on flats, by the way.)’ It wasn’t just you. Frame builder Jon Chickens chimed in with, ‘Ouch, just reading the ‘C word’ hurts my legs. You’ll need to learn to love your bike again after an hour of betrayal and hatred towards you on its part’.
You told me two days before the event you’d never ridden a drop bar bike in your life, you were joking of course?Almost. My one and only ‘droppie’ is still in my mum and dad’s shed. It hasn’t been ridden since I got my first BMX in summer 1982 when I was 11. I literally haven’t ridden anything with drop bars in 31 years. After five minutes on them I saw why: who thought of them?
So what bike did you race on the day?A 2013 Kona Jake, 53cm. I pulled it out of the box convinced that the guys from Kona had got their wires crossed and sent me the wrong bike. It looked like it shouldn’t go anywhere near dirt and the first spin/crash in Peckham Rye Park in the wet confirmed it. All that changed when a pair of Challenge Fango tyres unlocked the bike’s dirt loving geometry and spec. Instantly the Jake became devastatingly effective on ‘dirt’ (bumps, wet grass and mud). The skinny rubber cut little berms into the wet grass with every flick of the now not so stupid drop bars that pitch the rider over the front in a complete reversal of how you’d rail on a mountain bike. If you’ve got the balls, you could get your knee down on one of these and it’d handle it and because it’s so much fun to ride you’ll want to practice as often as you can.
Will you be asking Kona if you can keep the bike on a long term basis?It’s said that ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all’, which is fair enough when it comes to lasses, but if I didn’t have a CX bike now I’d be genuinely upset. We went through hell on race day and formed a bond. I’m now looking for any excuse to nip out to the shop on the other side of the park on it for stuff I don’t need.
Did you really race on flat pedals?Yup. I’ve never, ever clipped in and wasn’t about to start for the race. I didn’t realise how verboten this was until I went to ask about tyre pressure, bar position and ‘shouldering’ technique from Glen at BC Bikes and Ronan at Cadence. It was like I’d walked in with my old chap out: they were aghast and passed on their condolences for the death of reason. It worked out fine on the day though because what I lost by ‘2 stroking’ I made up for in getting back on the pedals quicker after shouldering and being able get all ‘Sideburn’ flat–track in the turns.
Would you clip in next time?Nope, partly for the same reason I usually race DH on my hardtail: you’ve got an excuse for doing badly, but if you do OK you’re a hero.
The race you entered was in London. What’s your take on inner–city bike racing? Should there be more?Way more. There’s no real chance for riders like us to get a consistent, dirt–under–tyres race fix in London. The S.E. Raggers put on a DH race in ‘The Bumming Woods’ a few years ago, and Scottish Pete did the same at Shooters Hill in the summer, but both could’ve been won on a hardtail with park tyres (actually Matt Harrington did just that on a 24” DMR with one brake at ‘round 1’). With the Jake at Ally Pally I got big mountain fear and a killer race buzz on ground that I wouldn’t even bother with on my Zesty.>>
