Since Cyclingnews' inception in 1995, our publication has been committed to offering our audience a full range of comprehensive coverage from the world of cycling, and cyclocross is no exception. The winter off-road discipline highlights the skills, power, tactics and technology used by the most talented athletes in cycling.
Many of you will have noticed our new digital subscription whereby after viewing five articles per month for free, you will see a prompt to take out a digital subscription.
For full details about our digital subscription and frequently asked questions, please visit Why does Cyclingnews have a paywall?
Your digital subscription includes our comprehensive coverage of cyclocross. To those who have joined as members to subscribe to our content, we thank you for supporting our cyclocross content and your contributions that help make it possible for our ever-growing in-depth coverage of this amazing discipline.
This season you can expect full coverage and news of all the World Cups, World Championships and the Superprestige series, as the big-three stars of the sport Tom Pidcock, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel return to competition in November.
Cyclocross and Cyclingnews through the years
Before gravel racing, before mountain biking, cyclocross was the discipline of racing with roots that took bicyclists through the fields, into the woods and off the roads. The early days of cyclocross looked a lot like gravel, with racers keeping fit in the winter months by pushing the boundary of what terrain is rideable. Modelled on the steeplechase, cyclocross takes riders over barriers, upstairs, up and down impossibly steep gradients, across muddy off-camber sections and sometimes sliding down a slick descent on one's backside.
Eventually, cyclocross became more professional. The first national championships started around the turn of the 20th century. The French called it cross cyclo-pédestre and hosted the first major international competition, the Critérium international de cross cyclo-pédestre, between 1924 and 1949. It was founded by L'Auto, the same newspaper that supported the creation of the Tour de France. Robert Oubron - perhaps the first cyclocross specialist in history - was the most successful rider, with four victories.
While the Critérium International was the 'unofficial' world championship of cyclocross, the UCI made an official version in 1950, where 1947 Tour de France winner Jean Robic became the first champion. Until Marianne Vos' eighth world title in 2022, Eric De Vlaeminck held the record for most world titles in cyclocross at seven between 1965 and 1973.
By the time the internet was created, and Cyclingnews started posting cyclocross news, reports and results, the discipline had spread from its core in Europe to far-flung regions like the United States and Japan. We followed cyclocross as Frank and Mark McCormack dominated in the US, when Adri van der Poel won the world title, through the years of Richard Groenendaal and Sven Nys' rivalry, Nys' rivalry with Niels Albert, the rise of Zdenek Stybar and then Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock.
Many of the major stars of the Tour de France have come from cyclocross. Van der Poel was already the junior road world champion when he began his dominance in cyclocross as an under-23 in 2013, the beginnings of his rivalry with Van Aert.
As live streaming became more prevalent, fans around the world were treated to thrilling duels between the two stars.
Our cyclocross coverage paralleled our commitment to women's cycling, and when the UCI finally added an elite women's race in 2000, Cyclingnews was there. We highlighted the adversity the women faced, from ridiculously short races - the first Worlds was 28 minutes long - to early morning starts, no television coverage, and mockery from the Belgian commentators.
Then, in 2006, Marianne Vos emerged from the junior ranks and beat the established stars - Hanka Kupfernagel and Daphny van den Brand - and went on to make history as the most successful cyclocross racer of all time.
Cyclingnews has been there throughout the years as the women fought for equality, finally moving into a prime time spot after the junior and under-23 men, getting longer races and equal prize money.
Now, there is a growing pipeline of junior races for women and more talent coming up, as evidenced by the incredibly talented riders at the top of the field like Fem van Empel, Puck Pieterse and Shirin van Anrooij.
Cyclingnews is committed to bringing our readers the broadest and most in-depth coverage of cyclocross possible. With your support, we can continue to delve into the tech, techniques and personalities all winter long.
