I once proudly wrote for this website that we should all form a truce not to race road bikes in March. It is too cold, everyone is miserable from the promoter to the racers to the volunteers. But if a race is put on, people will show up, so we have to agree that no one will put races on in March so that everyone’s lives will be better.

I am here to say I feel the same about cyclocross in September (don’t even ask me about August). Although there is the occasional nice weekend, it’s almost always too hot for a 40-60 minute maximum effort. Too sweltering, dry, dusty, bumpy, and miserable to race in little circles around a field. Shall I remind you that September is still summer!!! Summer is not for cyclocross!

And still, half of the CX calendar in the region is packed into the sweltering weeks of September. I get it for structural reasons. Even though it’s deeply unpleasant to be racing a cyclocross bicycle above 75 degrees (imo it’s pretty unpleasant above about 55 degrees), warm and (usually, lately) dry weather means less likely to get in a fight with your venue over muddy conditions. It is more pleasant to spectate in warmer weather, so more families come out. It’s much easier to put stakes in the ground when there’s no chance of freezing, and easier to get volunteers. Fewer people choose to stay home because of the bike maintenance that comes with cold and muddy CX. Promoters get the benefit of those dipping their toes into CX after road season, who want to be doing long, slow leaf peeping rides once fall really gets going. Plus, extending the season in the other direction hits up against Thanksgiving and winter holidays that severely depress turnout.

And yet, and yet, and yet.

I raced the women’s 1/2/3 at Whirlybird CX in Dresher, PA on Saturday, with a race time of 1:30pm and a temperature of roughly 82 according to the internet and 85 according to my car. My lap times were the following:

8:36, 8:56, 9:21, 9:57, 10:44

When I finished my race, my teammate Jacob told me my face was “beet red.” I was babbling about how something was maybe wrong with me, physically, in a larger sense (I always think something is wrong with me when I perform poorly in the bike race, alas). I felt like I was dying.

It wasn’t like I didn’t prepare for the heat: I had used an ice sock, which still had a bit of ice in it at the end. I wore Castelli’s summeriest jersey, the Climber’s Jersey, which is a mesh so transparent you can see both my bra and my belly button through it. I started the race with my jersey and my hair wet. I used an entire bottle of water during the race on my head and neck.

Let’s assume I went out a bit too hot, as we’re all wont to do when frenemies a bit above one’s current fitness level are in the field, but I also know my body and felt relatively okay in laps 1+2. I think my natural lap time on this course was about 9 minutes. But, in the second half of the race I exploded. Lap 5 was nearly 2 minutes slower than my earlier pace, and not for lack of trying. The whole second half of the race I felt like my body was on fire, and I watched my computer helplessly as what felt like the same amount of effort going into my legs produced less and less power on the climb up the second half of the course.

Maybe you think I’m just being whiny here, and I am. But such a huge increase in lap times clearly says the heat did something to my body.

I also raced the next day, making major tweaks to my heat protocol, and came away with vastly different results (consistency-wise—I did not come close to winning the race but that’s not the point).

I wasn’t sure what to expect of my first Pineapple Crush Cross, having read it was at a compost facility and having heard it was nothing but flat turns. It was both of those things. It didn’t smell bad exactly but I wouldn’t say it was a good stench. It did have nice flowers and some fun heavy machinery that cast the only shade in the venue. It was also, once again, hot, dusty, dry, and above 80 degrees when the elite women started at 2:15pm.

On the way to the race I detoured to Wawa, and showed up with 5lbs of ice and two gallons of water. I also made excessive use of the available hoses at the venue, which were ostensibly for washing bikes. At least four times during the day, I went to the hose and sprayed down my entire body. It was too uncomfortable to put on my gloves until I was at the start line because they made my hands all clammy (sensory ick). By the time I raced, every time I got on my bike disgusting water oozed out of my chamois.

I tripled the amount of ice I used, with one big sock on my upper back and a smaller sock in the middle pocket of the (once again very lovely) Castelli mesh climber’s jersey. Iced up, I hosed down my back one last time before heading to the start line. I had switched colors–at the line, I was shivering and Christina Hosenfeld told me my lips were blue. PERFECT. That’s exactly how you want to start a CX race.

It worked. Proving that I’m not completely incapable of pacing a race, my lap times from Sunday were the following:

7:55 (shorter lap), 8:28, 8:30, 8:35, 8:19 (!!!)

Without weighing in on whether these were fast times versus other people in the bike race (medium), they were pretty consistent. I would venture to say that me and my blue lips nailed it.

However, I hate what I had to do to make it happen. I don’t want to have to be soaking wet from head to toe for hours before a race to get the best out of my body. I hate buying ice and stuffing it into panty hose. I don’t want my toes to be pruney when I finally get to take off my socks. This is a cheap imitation of what cyclocross should be.

Again, this is not to blame promoters. I pay attention to registration numbers and weather and the amount of light in a day and the local politics of keeping a venue after a muddy race. I have tried to put a plastic stake in frozen ground. I, too, go do other things at least 3 weekends between Thanksgiving and New Years. I see why so many races get scheduled for the last blazes of summer.

And yet and yet and yet.

September is bad cyclocross. So, I have yet another modest proposal for everyone…