#foreversports

Are you going to vote at the General Election? Russell Brand says we shouldn’t bother.

“I’ve never ever voted in my life. I’ve been too busy really to make it down to the polling station. I just think to myself: fucking hell, I’ve gotta go in there. The thing is, you vote, and in a way you’re becoming part of something that you haven’t really got any control over.

“So, I vote, and the Conservatives get in. What can I do? You’re voting for people that you’ve got no faith in anyway. What the fuck’s the point in that? I might as well not vote, and call them all a bunch of cunts. And go: ‘you know what? You aint got a clue, you lot. You’re all in it together. It’s all a little boys club. And you’re all fucking scratching each other’s backs. And good luck to you, but let me in the club! [Shouting] I wanna be in that club!

What would you do if you were in that club?

“I’d be fucking like most of these other people, raping the country of millions and trillions of pounds. Like the banks and all that. I’d be going: ‘yeah! Let’s have it’. Wolf of Wall Street, just smash it mate. And that’s what they’re all at. They’re all having a good time. But you need the politicians, you need all these guys… they’re kind of like: ‘I’ll take care of that, you take care of that. I’ll bring a law in that stops them from doing that, so we’ve got it all sorted.’

“It just goes to show, look at Tony Blair. He fucking went into Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction. He caused the war, him and Bush. And now he’s the UN peacekeeper for the Middle East. I mean, how’d he get that job? [Shouting again] He caused the war! He goes smashing in there, toting liberty, right. No weapons, and they go, right, you can have that job. I mean that’s proper insulting. That’s going: in your face, have some of that.

“I’m just enjoying the front row seat. I sit here and I like to watch it all going on and I think: you know what, this is fucking brilliant. It’s pantomime. It’s great pantomime. But if you take it too seriously, like a lot of these people: Labour, Conservatives... I look at them and think, mate, you’re just wasting your time. I mean, I could be wrong. I could be wrong but, y’know, I just don’t get it.

“I like Russell Brand, though. I think he’s alright.”

Read the full interview only in Forever Sports. OUT NOW!

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Spectators are three or four deep at the hoardings flanking the start line, waiting for a glimpse of the world’s best on mud and two wheels. The anticipation is palpable – almost anxious – as necks crane, eyes dart and legs bounce restlessly up and down. This anxiety shouldn’t be mistaken for expectation though; for the 8,000 in attendance, this is as new as the freshly laid tarmac that makes up the finishing straight.

The racers have rolled up to the starting line now, and the compère is announcing names and nationalities of those taking part. You’d expect him to be drowned out by the tinny scream of two-stroke motocross engines, or the raucous home support, but it’s actually the clocking-ring of cowbells. Why? Because this is cyclo-cross, and in cyclo-cross, nothing is as it seems.

Cyclo-cross is a straightforward circuit race on a push bike, but with a difference. It’s a cycle race that’s not confined to the cycle. In fact, cyclo-cross demands that riders dismount, carry their bikes and surmount a variety of obstacles and obstructions on a course up to 4km long. We’re talking stairs, wooden barriers, thick mud and hills so steep you get vertigo looking at them – you know, objects that aren’t really surmountable on two wheels. The aim, like in any other race, is simple: beat the other 50 riders around you by as much as possible – that’s if the track doesn’t beat you first.

One thing you can expect is carnage. The races are frenetic and the courses are designed to test the rider’s physical and mental conditioning; that means no domestiques, no drafting and no lead-out trains. Physicality plays a massive role as riders have to be aerobically fit to last the duration of the race, strong enough to carry a bike over unrideable sections of the course and mentally tough enough not to succumb to the savage, often contemptuous, atmosphere.

The courses are techinically complex and mentally exhausting – lapses in concentration often result in bodies hitting the deck, and as a circuit gets churned up, crashes become more frequent. The brutality of the course also means the bikes are prone to mechanical problems, so much so they actually have pit lanes where they can change bikes and equipment. This often radically alters each rider’s plan of attack – the only constant in cyclo-cross is improvisation.

As it’s a winter discipline running from September to February in cycling’s off-season, cyclo-cross has become a popular method of training for road cyclists looking to improve their physical fitness before the Spring Classics.

It’s not just for off-duty road pros though – cyclo-cross has heroes in its own right. From Sven Nys to Katie Compton, Briton Helen Wyman to Kevin Pauwels. Alongside Wyman, four-time British Champion Ian Field is one of the British scene’s brightest luminaries. Having started racing cyclo-cross in a school field at the age of 12, Field has become a regular in World Cup and World Championship competitions earning his living from plowing through the mud. The Team Hargroves cyclist finished 12th in the race we saw in Milton Keynes, proving that as the highest-ranked British male in the world’s top 100, he can mix it with the big boys.

“It’s the intensity that does it for me,” says Field. “Races are only an hour long, so when that gun goes it’s a full-on effort. You’re combining the technical ability of mountain biking and the stamina and endurance from road biking. It’s the ultimate discipline as it’s a combination of the two.”

Field has won four consecutive championships dating back to 2012, with the most recent win coming in January's nationals in Abergavenny, Wales.

You’d have to go back more than 100 years to find the sport’s earthy roots. They have often been credited to French army private Daniel Gousseau, who would opt to use his bike to ride alongside his General, who would ride on horseback. He enjoyed it so much, he invited his friends to join him and this inevitably lead to races. In 1902, Gousseau founded the first French National Cyclo-Cross Championships, officially elevating the sport from a pastime to a challenge of endurance and technical mastery in the bitter quagmires of northern France.

Other stories suggest sports journalist Géo Lefèvre, who was the originator of the Tour de France, came up with the idea of “cross cyclo-pédèstre”, or cycling-walking cross. Lefèvre’s 1903 account of the roots of cyclo-cross have the same muddy fingerprints over them as Gousseau’s, that ’cross was actually an efficient mode of transport: “Think about a cyclist in wartime,” Gousseau noted. “He can’t use the main roads; he has to ride or walk across unmade roads and worm his way through the undergrowth and clamber across ditches. That’s the principle of the cross cyclo-pédèstre.”

For a decade the sport was the preserve of France’s eccentric cycling elite, and it wasn’t until Belgian rider Octave “Curly” Lapize won the 1910 Tour de France that its popularity exploded. He credited his powers of endurance to his off-season spent “mud-plugging” and it became apparent that it was an effective method of training.

Forty years later the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), cycling’s main governing body, began to govern cyclo-cross internationally, ratifying the sport with its first world championships in Paris, 1950. The sport reached the States by the 1960s and has experienced varying levels of popularity since.

Today, it’s an important fixture on international cycling’s annual calendar, while the UCI World Championships in January has become essential off-season velo-viewing. Combined viewing figures from the 2013 Cyclo-cross World Championships clocked in at a whopping 3.7m views across all platforms. Broadcasters in the Netherlands and Belgium will air the competition in its entirety, while British Eurosport are making a good fist of showing both UCI World Cup races and the world champs.

Interestingly, the bikes today have more in common with road bikes than mountain bikes – the lightweight frames share similar geometries, have drop handlebars and skinny, lightweight wheels, but also use cantilever brakes, have wider rear dropouts to stop the wheels clogging up with mud and, naturally, have knobbled tires.

While cyclo-cross receives plenty of attention abroad, the sport has not gained as much of a muddy foot-hold in this country as other disciplines such as cross-country, downhill, and even BMX, enjoy. This could be about to change however. Last November’s Milton Keynes leg of the 2014 Cyclo-Cross World Cup has gone some way to getting a nation of cycling fans talking about the sport.

Simon Burney, UCI’s mountain bike coordinator and organiser of the World Cup event in MK thinks so, saying the sport is on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough in the UK: “It’s a grassroots sport so things are very regional; there are areas of the country that have races every weekend, and they’re seeing a big growth in participation.

“There are lots more kids riding cyclo-cross, too.” Burney tells us. “While the elite end isn’t necessarily massive, as the sport grows each day there are youngsters who learn more and more and will eventually reach the top. The important thing is that they’re participating.” Signs of growth are being reflected in new and exisiting manufacturers willing to diversify and expand their ranges to accomodate cyclo-cross. New kids on the block Radial cycles have committed to developing a range of cross bikes alongside their road, downhill and cross-country ranges.

“We have a real soft spot for the sport here,” says Matt Pryke, senior category manager of Radial. “We certainly see a growth in cyclo-cross from a relative niche to what is now a fully fledged category of its own, commercially.

“Events should grow naturally as participation increases and it becomes more familiar on our cycling calendar.” With new businesses such as Radial willing to invest in a fledgling market, and more established manufacturers diversifying too, it can only be a good thing for the discipline’s future on these shores.

Field agrees, and hopes to see the World Cup return to the UK. “When you race in front of 45,000 in Holland it’s special. It’s like when you’re a kid and dream of being a footballer or something, playing in front of lots of people. Well racing in front of your home crowd is pretty close.

“Hopefully MK kick-starts something,” Field adds. “There can only be bigger and better things for the sport in the UK.”