Founded in 1995, The X-Men is a Park City-based road, mountain bike, and cyclocross club, with individual members and pockets of resistance all over the country. We’re open to riders of all ages and abilities who are brave enough to don our iconic stripes and lightning bolt kits, and make a statement. There is a problem with non-conformity, though. Pretty soon people want to join and be part of your movement. You start something new, because you are sick of riding for the man, then you wake up and realize you are the man. Because of this, we’ve been deliberate about making ourselves hard to understand, and even harder to get in touch with. And another thing. We’re not super organized. We all mostly have real lives outside of the make-believe world of modern cycling. It would be a mistake to call us retro, despite the fact that we often tell stories on rides from the old days. We are proud to say that not a single current member rides with an SRM. At least not in public. Power is in the heart, folks. Bike races are won with willpower, not a spreadsheet.

1. Why Squadra? We’ve been with Squadra non-stop since I did the first blue and black striped kit in 1996 (I think). Dan and his colleagues are good friends, and have always gone above and beyond their standard pricing to help a small team out. I think their quality is top shelf, we’ve never had any complaints. What they do for us right now is give us pricing based on much higher quantity orders, which is good for everyone, because it keeps the price down.

2. Why a pre-order? In past years, I have just guessed and placed orders knowing there would be a certain amount of people who would come knocking in the spring looking for a team kit. There have been some years when I have guessed wrong, and spent a lot of money out of pocket to buy a bunch of clothing. In some cases, I didn’t get enough of one size, and too much of another. The truth is, I can’t afford to do that, and have lost out in years past. We don’t make any money off of the clothing, just enough to cover shipping, paypal fees, etc.

3. Why such a rush to get the pre-order in? Squadra’s production schedule is first come, first served. Keep in mind that many teams place their orders before the first of the year, so there are a lot of clubs ahead of us. We’re just trying to get our order in so we get our stuff right about when the snow melts.

4. Is the design going to change? Nope. We have never liked the idea of making last year’s kit obsolete by changing designs or swapping sponsor logos. So if you have team kit from last year, you are good, just order what you need for this year, and it will more or less match.

5. What’s new for 2012? Even though our basic design is the same, Squadra is always making small improvements and enhancements to their products. For example, this year’s PRO ISSUE bibs have a fabric POWER BAND closure on the bottoms of the legs, rather than silicon gripper on the insides. This is a progressive improvement that you see more and more high end manufacturers moving towards.

New Squadra POWER BAND grippers on shorts.

I hope this helps explain how we do our clothing orders this way. I guess if we had a big sponsor, we could just hedge our bets and buy a whole bunch of team clothing to have on hand when the season starts. If anyone knows where we could find such a sponsor, let me know!

Place your Pre-Order for 2012 now!

UTCX3 – Fort Buenaventura from Grizzly Adam on Vimeo.

There weren’t many places to ride cross bikes that weren’t mountain bike trails, so every once in awhile, we used to gather at Sugarhouse Park for “cross practice” which involved riding as hard as we could around the outside of the park and dismounting and running up the steepest hill we could find. Me, Max, Glen Adams, Craig Thomas.

Keep in mind, my memories of these early days of cyclocross in Utah are spotty.

Dr. Cross, (Darrell Davis) has taken that idea of cross practice at Sugarhouse Park, and turned it into a really valuable clinic for first timers, as well as seasoned crossers who need to get out and brush off the cobwebs. He sets up barriers, does some basic instruction and tips, and takes groups of all abilities around the park. It’s important to note, that back when there were only 4 or 5 of us meeting down there, we were riding rogue. Darrell has done a lot to work with the powers that be at this park to ensure a good relationship between us weird bikers and the other users of the park. It’s worth signing up for this season long clinic, even if you only drop in a few times. Check it out:

It’s time again for the Contender Cyclocross Clinic at Sugarhouse park.

http://events.sportsbaseonline.com/CONTENDERCXCLINIC2011/

Notice that as was the case last year, it’s pre-reg only and the price is unchanged.

Cross it up,

-Darrell

Hopefully your winter has been filled with lots of skiing, nordic and/or alpine. Myself, I haven’t touched a bike since the last Utah cyclocross race, but I am starting to look forward to dry roads and long rides. Even though it’s the first day of March, and even though I expect we’ll have quite a bit of epic skiing still to come this season, I am looking forward to the Utah Spring Classics. That being said, I wanted to thank everyone who placed a clothing pre-order this year. We’re small, and everything is made to order by Squadra. They must have bumped us to the front of the line, because I just got an email from Dough (Greg Demgen) telling me their estimated delivery date is March 11, plus or minus a few days. So if you are local, I’ll be hitting you up when the big box arrives so we can arrange a time to meet. If you are from out of town, I’ll turn around all shipped orders as quickly as I can so you will have your new stuff towards the end of the month. Enjoy the rest of the winter, and the beginning of spring!

–Thomas

1. The design will stay the same as last year. Why? We keep the design simple, free from any sponsor logos, because we don’t really have any. This means if you bought some stuff last year, this year’s stuff will match. We try to keep it simple.

2. Clothing is PRE-ORDER only. This means if you are a new member, you need to order it now and commit. There won’t be extra clothing later when the season starts. Buying a team kit and paying your 2011 Club Dues is really all you need to do to join.

3. PRE-ORDER is open now and will close out at the end of January. That’s when we’ll download all the orders and place our master order with Squadra, with planned delivery being in early March. Do it now.

4. We are offering more of a complete team kit this year. Last year, we only did the basics, but this year, folks have asked for more stuff such as Short Sleeve Skinsuits, Jackets, Armwarmers. Now is your chance to order what you need for the upcoming season of road, mountain bike, and cyclocross goods. What are we missing? Leave a comment if there is an item you really want and we’ll see if we can add it to the initial PRE-ORDER.

5. We are offering 2 levels of Jerseys and Bibs this season. Last season, I was lucky to do some testing for Squadra’s new Pro Line. The Pro-Line is a step up from the already great Team Gear, featuring different materials and a high end chamois pad in the bibs. All I can say is this: if you stick with the Team Gear, you won’t be disappointed and you will save a few bucks, but the Pro Line is totally worth it. If you want the ultimate in comfort, check out the Pro Line Jersey and the Pro Line Bibs.

The course was mostly grass, sidewalk, and some pavement in the start finish area. It was quite twisty and turny, requiring a lot of skill to carry speed throughout the course. Sometimes on courses like that, you don’t feel tired because you never really get a chance to get things pumping, but this course had me tapped. When the gun went off, I led out the first lap, trying to not go redline knowing that Sager was right on my wheel. On lap 2, Sager and Rico went by and I did everything I could to hang on. I noticed Art had come off, so I tried to stay with the Sager train as long as I could, but somewhere in the middle of lap 3, I was exploding. On lap 4, Art caught me, and we rode a redux of the day before, trading punches  and pulls all the way down to the final laps. With 4 laps to go (seriously, 4 laps to go? Who throws a shoe? WTF?) I noticed SLC TBird (recently retired, ex-pro Burke Swindlehurst) was making an effort to get close, so I led it out until 1 lap to go. Art hit me hard a few times, but I was able to get by and shut the door in the last final turns, which led to a half decent sprint and a podium placing for 3rd. Seriously the hardest cross race I have done all year. I learned this lesson: the course can make the race hard, but the racers make it harder. Shadow boxing with Art for 50 minutes has become a recurring theme, and I don’t think we’re done for the season yet.

I saved some water by drinking a beer right after the race.