There is hope ladies and gents. A magazine with a fairly wide distribution followed through on their promise from about this time last year....and that was to give 'cross some due coverage. So I sent them an email to say KUDOS by looping back and reading good 'ol Mud and Cowbells dot com.

So here goes:
To the Procycling staff:

You did it! You embraced the tidal wave otherwise known as cyclocross and I am immensely happy. The coverage in your December 2007 issue was spectacular. The stories, photos and tech articles gave a great insight to the now full time discipline of 'cross for your readers to learn about. I've been a subscriber to Procycling for time ad infinitum and I enjoyed the fact you are one of the first long standing road cycling mags to not treat it as the 'winter training sport' pro roadies traditionally leveraged to keep the fat off after drinking too much Leffe and eating too much chevres on their winter holidays. Cross is life for so many cycling enthusiasts now. The specialization of the sport over the last decade (most intensely the last 5 years here in the States) has both racer and bike industry person enamored.

Let's look at it from the angle of the Procycling reader's typical demographic (and I'm venturing a guess here!):

Exhibit A) 25-55 males with full time jobs and likely families to boot.

Now take that info and lay that over the top of the sport of 'cross:

Exhibit B) Races that are 45 minutes to an hour of absolute fun (OK, fun is relative to how much suffering you want to take) putting riders on courses that their entire family can watch them lap after lap slog through the mud, jump over barriers and be treated to a carnival atmosphere. Pretty different to a road race where you wave goodbye to your loved one and see them in 3.5 to 5 hours.

What do you have: A perfect match when you combine the two.

The tidal wave is reaching its crest and the bike industry is waking up to it. Racer fields are growing and the availability of specific frames, tires, bits and training knowledge are creating a frenzy of information need. And you supplied some goodness. Kudos!

Greg Colorado-USA

Nice work Procycling!