Overland: The Road To Worlds - Caitlin Bernstein
Overland: The Road To Worlds - Caitlin Bernstein
Words/Photos: Adam Kachman
It’s a rainy Sunday in Zolder, the month before Worlds. Lucinda Brand sits in her team bus, sipping coffee. Tom Pidcock scrolls Instagram while his mechanic christens his bike with fresh tape, then polishes it to perfection. Easton Overland’s Caitlin Bernstein can’t find a parking spot, or a bathroom, and she also suspects their RV might be accidentally driving on a bike path.
This is Caitlin’s road to World's. This is Cyclocross.
Her journey to the elite level of the sport was both impressive and incongruous. After retiring from cross-country ski racing in 2012, following her third knee surgery, Caitlin swapped groomed trails for dirt ones as she took a stab at trail running. A few races in, and with a furiously protesting knee, she quickly realized that running competitively wasn’t sustainable.
True athletes have a bullish persistence about them. To move is to live and to push yourself is to grow. For those hard-wired to strive, an injury is merely an obstacle to navigate; another barrier to bunny hop. So, unthwarted by what her body was telling her she couldn’t do, Caitlin turned to the bike, and hasn’t looked back since.
In 2015, Caitlin threw a leg over a cyclocross bike as a “casual way to get back into racing.” In 2018, she partnered with Mcgovern Cycles and rode to a top 10 at Nationals. She would do the same in 2019, 2020, and 2021; the season of her Euro campaign, and her first World Championships race.
It’s been two weeks since the rainbow stripes were claimed and the confetti swept away. Caitlin is back home in Reno relaxing with her dog Sisi and husband Franz who was at the finish line in Fayetteville to embrace her after she emptied the tank at Centennial Park.
This was not Caitlin's first time flying into corners shoulder to shoulder with top elite women. She spent the tail end of 2021 battling through World Cup mud, sand, and parking debacles, as she dove head first into the stacked fields in Namur, Zolder, Baal, Rucphen, Dendermonde, and Hulst.
A Euro campaign may sound idyllic and dream-like, especially when most of us envision a trip to Europe to be a montage of elegance and indulgence where everyone rides a scooter and has a wine cellar. But Belgium is gray and brooding in December and US Cyclocross racers (anyone not on a major team, for that matter) are not pampered jet setters. There are no elaborate team buses to relax in, no masseuses to breathe life into tired legs, and sometimes there isn’t even a parking spot for you and your mechanic, as Bernstein learned when she arrived at Zolder, only to be turned away by a marshal and left to park four kilometers away from the historic F1 circuit and legendary cyclocross venue.
Thankfully, Caitlin had the camaraderie and guidance of friend and training partner, Pan-Am Champ Magalie Rochette. While it was Bernstein's first time in Europe, it was Maghalies’ fifth, and in the months before Caitlin's arrival in Europe, Mag’s had taken two podiums. One in Besançon (2nd) just 30 seconds off the wheel of Lucinda Brand, and another in Val De Sole(3rd) a mere 5 seconds behind Marianne Vos. When asked about her dynamic with Rochette, Caitlin cracks a wry smile “Maghalie is on fire right now, I watch her lines and try to absorb and reflect the energy she brings on both sides of the tape”
It took Maghalie 56 European races to step onto the podium. In December, Caitlin was lining up for her first. I asked her about her perspective on mid-pack racing, the mental game that comes with stepping into deep waters, and what its’ like to go full gas on the famously sketchy Zolder descent.
“For the first time ever, I felt genuine fear on a course. In pre-ride, you ride a descent and think to yourself; ok that was tricky but well within my wheelhouse. That reality gets turned upside down when the screws are being turned, there are twelve riders fighting for the same position, and your vision is narrowing. What was mundane in pre-ride turns into a white knuckle, say a prayer and send it situation. If you get to the bottom and rail the rut, you feel this immediate rush of; holy shit I made it. Then you realize you have to drop the hammer, again.”
When Caitlin crosses the line, she’s 32nd. But racing is all about context.
There is little illusion in the minds of cyclocross athletes and fans when it comes to competing against the Dutch armada and Belgian hardwomen. It can feel at times like the 777 and Trek Baloise Lions are on another planet while racers from other nations scrap it out for mid pack results. But this is where not only the most interesting racing is, but the best stories of human resilience and athletic fortitude. Anyone who has recently fallen in love with Formula 1, the high octane sibling of cyclocross, will have relished in the mid pack battles of Aston Martin, Mclaren, and Alpine which electrified the stands and provided some of the best racing of 2021. Cyclocross is no different.
A good racer knows how to race where they’re comfortable, a great racer can ply their craft anywhere, and this is what Caitlin does so well. The mental game of racing in the middle is one of savvy determination and undeterred grit, something Bernstein has honed over her years between the tape. Her performances in Europe, along with those of Mags, and of course, Clara Honsinger who took a huge wine at the Koppenberg cross, solidified what we as cyclocross fans already knew: The future of North American cx is being led by women.
Words/Photos: Adam Kachman
It’s a rainy Sunday in Zolder, the month before Worlds. Lucinda Brand sits in her team bus, sipping coffee. Tom Pidcock scrolls Instagram while his mechanic christens his bike with fresh tape, then polishes it to perfection. Easton Overland’s Caitlin Bernstein can’t find a parking spot, or a bathroom, and she also suspects their RV might be accidentally driving on a bike path.
This is Caitlin’s road to World's. This is Cyclocross.
Her journey to the elite level of the sport was both impressive and incongruous. After retiring from cross-country ski racing in 2012, following her third knee surgery, Caitlin swapped groomed trails for dirt ones as she took a stab at trail running. A few races in, and with a furiously protesting knee, she quickly realized that running competitively wasn’t sustainable.
True athletes have a bullish persistence about them. To move is to live and to push yourself is to grow. For those hard-wired to strive, an injury is merely an obstacle to navigate; another barrier to bunny hop. So, unthwarted by what her body was telling her she couldn’t do, Caitlin turned to the bike, and hasn’t looked back since.
In 2015, Caitlin threw a leg over a cyclocross bike as a “casual way to get back into racing.” In 2018, she partnered with Mcgovern Cycles and rode to a top 10 at Nationals. She would do the same in 2019, 2020, and 2021; the season of her Euro campaign, and her first World Championships race.
It’s been two weeks since the rainbow stripes were claimed and the confetti swept away. Caitlin is back home in Reno relaxing with her dog Sisi and husband Franz who was at the finish line in Fayetteville to embrace her after she emptied the tank at Centennial Park.
This was not Caitlin's first time flying into corners shoulder to shoulder with top elite women. She spent the tail end of 2021 battling through World Cup mud, sand, and parking debacles, as she dove head first into the stacked fields in Namur, Zolder, Baal, Rucphen, Dendermonde, and Hulst.
A Euro campaign may sound idyllic and dream-like, especially when most of us envision a trip to Europe to be a montage of elegance and indulgence where everyone rides a scooter and has a wine cellar. But Belgium is gray and brooding in December and US Cyclocross racers (anyone not on a major team, for that matter) are not pampered jet setters. There are no elaborate team buses to relax in, no masseuses to breathe life into tired legs, and sometimes there isn’t even a parking spot for you and your mechanic, as Bernstein learned when she arrived at Zolder, only to be turned away by a marshal and left to park four kilometers away from the historic F1 circuit and legendary cyclocross venue.
Thankfully, Caitlin had the camaraderie and guidance of friend and training partner, Pan-Am Champ Magalie Rochette. While it was Bernstein's first time in Europe, it was Maghalies’ fifth, and in the months before Caitlin's arrival in Europe, Mag’s had taken two podiums. One in Besançon (2nd) just 30 seconds off the wheel of Lucinda Brand, and another in Val De Sole(3rd) a mere 5 seconds behind Marianne Vos. When asked about her dynamic with Rochette, Caitlin cracks a wry smile “Maghalie is on fire right now, I watch her lines and try to absorb and reflect the energy she brings on both sides of the tape”
It took Maghalie 56 European races to step onto the podium. In December, Caitlin was lining up for her first. I asked her about her perspective on mid-pack racing, the mental game that comes with stepping into deep waters, and what its’ like to go full gas on the famously sketchy Zolder descent.
“For the first time ever, I felt genuine fear on a course. In pre-ride, you ride a descent and think to yourself; ok that was tricky but well within my wheelhouse. That reality gets turned upside down when the screws are being turned, there are twelve riders fighting for the same position, and your vision is narrowing. What was mundane in pre-ride turns into a white knuckle, say a prayer and send it situation. If you get to the bottom and rail the rut, you feel this immediate rush of; holy shit I made it. Then you realize you have to drop the hammer, again.”
When Caitlin crosses the line, she’s 32nd. But racing is all about context.
There is little illusion in the minds of cyclocross athletes and fans when it comes to competing against the Dutch armada and Belgian hardwomen. It can feel at times like the 777 and Trek Baloise Lions are on another planet while racers from other nations scrap it out for mid pack results. But this is where not only the most interesting racing is, but the best stories of human resilience and athletic fortitude. Anyone who has recently fallen in love with Formula 1, the high octane sibling of cyclocross, will have relished in the mid pack battles of Aston Martin, Mclaren, and Alpine which electrified the stands and provided some of the best racing of 2021. Cyclocross is no different.
A good racer knows how to race where they’re comfortable, a great racer can ply their craft anywhere, and this is what Caitlin does so well. The mental game of racing in the middle is one of savvy determination and undeterred grit, something Bernstein has honed over her years between the tape. Her performances in Europe, along with those of Mags, and of course, Clara Honsinger who took a huge wine at the Koppenberg cross, solidified what we as cyclocross fans already knew: The future of North American cx is being led by women.