Santa Rosa's cyclocross race brings rough riders

<p>An Olympic athlete, a national contender and a toddler on a two-wheeler were among the cyclists who competed Sunday in what has become an annual Santa Rosa cyclocross competition.</p><p>The Santa Rosa CX Cup led athletes through a series of laps on a two-kilometer loop that wound around the Oak Knolls picnic area of Spring Lake Regional Park.</p><p>Riders navigated muddy descents, pushed through gravel straightaways and leaped off their bicycles to hoof it over logs or man-made obstacles without losing momentum.</p><p>“The course was awesome,” said Sarah Bamberger of San Francisco, winner of the most competitive women's event.</p><p>After the final women's competition, Bamberger reflected on how she managed to pull ahead of her two main competitors, two-time Olympian Mary McConneloug and national contender Ellen Sherrill with the Bike Station Aptos team.</p><p>“I'm so glad they were here. It raised the level of the race and made me work really hard,” she said.</p><p>Bike Monkey Magazine and CX Nation co-hosted the fourth annual event, which this year took place on Nov. 26 and Sunday.</p><p>Cyclocross mixes mountain biking, road cycling and obstacle-course survival. The sport began in Europe as an off-season training method that took advantage of winter's muddy conditions to force cyclists to strengthen different muscles.</p><p>On Sunday, Bryan Mischke, 42, of Santa Rosa got a flat tire about a kilometer from the maintenance tent.</p><p>“So I ran half the course,” Mischke said.</p><p>Each course comes with a unique set of conditions that force riders to make split-second decisions.</p><p>“That's why I love it, anything can happen,” said Ellen Sherrill, 32, of South Lake Tahoe. “You never know what you're going to get.”</p><p>Sherrill held up her arm to reveal a patch over the elbow of her jersey that covered a row of stitches from a prior crash.</p><p>CX Nation founder Brian Staby spent three months riding around Spring Lake to select a course. He and Bike Monkey founder Carlos Perez designed the loop with city approval.</p><p>“The idea is to get people on and off their bikes, force them to dismount,” Perez said.</p><p>The competition was broken up into heats organized by age and skill level. The littlest cyclists pushed and pedaled their two-wheelers during a short noontime children's event. Adolescents as young as 11 competed in several races.</p><p>“We try to bring people up here and celebrate the park,” said Staby, a Santa Rosa firefighter. “Hopefully they'll come back.”</p><p>Supporters along the course rang cow bells and cheered. Regular park visitors gawked at the riders as they jumped off their bikes and carried them over yellow obstacles.</p><p>Joan and Ed Germeshausen of Santa Rosa noticed organizers setting up on Saturday and decided to come back Sunday to learn about cyclocross.</p><p>“This is a tough sport — strength and endurance,” Joan Germeshausen said.</p><p>Participant fees of $30 for adults and $15 for youths will cover event costs. Proceeds from the beer tent will be donated to the Bike Elves, a program that refurbishes bicycles and donates them to the Santa Rosa firefighter's Toys for Kids program.</p><p>The short course and obstacles make cyclocross a “spectator-friendly race,” said Bill Best, 75, a Santa Rosa cyclist who competed with the track bicycle team in the 1963 Pan American Games.</p><p>“There's some spectacular riding here,” Best said.</p>