After a summer of European road racing, a sprinkle of mountain bike, and a ton of miles in my own legs, it is finally happening: #crossishere.

World Cup Waterloo happens to be one of my favorite events of the year. In past years, I’ve both shot the professional races and raced the amateur event. With the forecast looking very bleak for 2023 and CX being all but dead in SoCal, I decided to skip the racing and just spend a weekend shooting and chilling.

Bleak it was. Oof. The Friday of WC Waterloo weekend is always a lower level professional race. It has bounced between the C2 and C1 level, and this year is back at C2. The classification doesn’t really matter that much from a sporting standpoint, top tier Euro riders typically take the day off with the second tier stealing the show. Occasionally, you will get a Trek sponsored rider that draws the short stick of sponsor obligations and has to jump in the Friday race. They generally win. This year was no different, Shirin Van Anrooij took it for the women and Pim Ronhaar the men.

The real story was the weather. It was a full on downpour for much of the women’s race. The conditions were frankly terrible, and a brand new Sony camera body was the casualty of the day. No saying what happened, but kudos to KEH for the warranty replacement. I would be down to one camera body for the rest of the weekend.

The skies cleared and Sunday produced a fantastic October day in Wisconsin. We were treated with blue skies, puffy clouds, and a backdrop that would produce stunning images.

The World Champ took the World Cup opener pretty convincingly. Fem looked strong from the start and got away pretty early in the proceedings. Puck put up a good fight early on, but you could see her skills weren’t quite sharp coming off the end of the mountain bike season.

Over on the men’s side, the question was whether Eli Iserbyt would take another win in Waterloo or if one of the Trek affliated rider’s would steal the day. The racing was super dynamic and ever changing, but by midway through the race it was clear the Trek riders were on good form.

Honestly, the sponsors couldn’t wish for a better ending than what they got. Thibau Nys (yes, Sven’s son) stole the show and then lost his mind at the finish line. What a spectacular environment to be a tiny part of.

That’s it from Waterloo! By now saying this is becoming quite a tradition, but I hope this isn’t the last one of these. FLCS and the UCI seem a little flaky on the stateside WC stops, and it wouldn’t be a bit surprising to see this venue dropped in the future. Cross your fingers…

Our cyclocross coverage this fall:
– WC Waterloo
– Pan American Championships (Missoula, MT)
– USA National Championships (Louisville, KY)
– WC Hoogerheide/GP Adrie Van Der Poel (Hoogerheide, NL)
– UCI CX World Championships (Tabor, CZE)