CX and COVID-19 Part 1: Kim Hurst
This week CX Down Under will be telling the stories of members of the Australian and New Zealand cyclocross communities who are also medical professionals.
Our first interview is with Hüttcross organiser, elite international cyclocross racer and New Zealand cross legend Kim Hurst.
CX Down Under: Tell us about your start in CX. How did you get your start in the sport?
Kim Hurst: My cross experience started back in 2010, not long after I’d moved to New Zealand from the UK. In the UK you can race your mountain bike pretty much all year round, and that’s what I’d been doing since I was 15 years old. In New Zealand it was more seasonal - road cycling and mountain biking in the summer and autumn, a little bit here and there in the spring, but nothing much in the winter.
There was a local American guy who was organising a cyclocross race in a local park, so I took my mountain bike along to the first round and competed, but the organiser told me that if I wanted to race in A grade I’d need a proper CX bike.
I very quickly bought myself a real cheap alloy cross bike for $1000 NZD - it had terrible carbon forks, really average wheels and a [Shimano] 105 groupset.
I took that bike all the way to my first New Zealand Nationals and even raced it against Katie Compton!
I started becoming more keen on cyclocross, and upgraded my bike in 2012 to something a bit faster. I still only had one bike for ages - people think that they need multiple bikes when they’re first getting into the sport, but I had some pretty decent results only having one pretty cheap bike.
In 2017 I took things a bit more seriously, and travelled over to Oz a few times and raced a bit in the States as well.
CXDU: You’re also a race organiser in your own right. Tell us a bit about your experience with organising and running CX races.
KH: I started out with Huttcross [the race series Kim currently organises] in 2010-11, when we were getting 30-50 riders along, and the race organiser’s wife would have a pot of soup for everyone afterwards. We’d put out minimal course marking because we could trust that everyone would compete honestly - we’d have around 8 or 9 in A grade, and for a long time I was the only woman competing.
It grew quite quickly to around 70-100 riders per race day and some of the handicapping to make sure people were in the right grade wasn’t quite working as planned. There were a few little niggles, and it felt like it was something I could help with. I served on the Huttcross committee for a year, and then when the president stepped down the following year I put my hand up for that job. I’ve really enjoyed getting a really solid committee on board - people who have a huge range of abilities and can reel me back in when necessary.
“The thing I’m most proud of is that we’ve really improved what we offer for kids. ”
Previously we’d set up a small course for kids and let them tool around on that, while the older kids could race with their parents in C Grade. I remember going to the States and seeing their KindyCross and other races for kids on balance and wanting to replicate that here - hence MightyCross was born! We’re now regularly getting 50+ kids along, which of all the things I’ve done in cyclocross is the thing I’m most proud of.
CXDU: You also played a big role in getting New Zealand back on the list of UCI-sanctioned national cyclocross championships. What was that process like?
KH: Yeah, that’s been a thorn in my side for a long time. It dropped off the UCI calendar back in 2013, and at the time a friend of mine who was working for Cycling New Zealand asked me to write about the importance of having a UCI-sanctioned national champs. I did, even though I wasn’t racing cyclocross at the time, preferring 24hr MTB racing [Ed: Where she won a world championship - no biggie] instead.
The Kiwi attitude is a funny thing - I love it to bits, but the desire to not be regulated can be counterproductive at times.
At that stage Kiwi cyclocross had grown past the grassroots level and had reached a point where there were a decent number of seniors and juniors who did want to compete for a national title. I think at the time people may have misinterpreted my desire to have a UCI-sanctioned national championship on the calendar as more self-motivated than it was. I certainly wanted to win - I mean, who wouldn’t? - but there are easier things to do with your spare time. It eventually happened, partly thanks to a group of guys in Christchurch [Southern Cross CX] working along with Cycling New Zealand.
I was also really keen for it not just to be an elite event - in many other cross countries Masters national titles are a big deal, but in New Zealand they don’t tend to be. I wanted to push that it was something for everybody, so we called the weekend Aotearoa Crossfest.
CXDU: Tell us a bit about your work. What do you do for a living, and how has it been impacted by COVID-19?
KH: I’m a general practitioner - I graduated in the UK and had a military scholarship for the last year of medical school, so I served with the Royal Air Force for nine years before I moved to New Zealand. During that time we actually did a number of pandemic crisis-type drills and while at the time I didn’t envisage working in those situations in real life, so it’s been strange to look back at that.
Ever since I moved to New Zealand I’ve worked in a community practice in the Hutt Valley [just north of Wellington]. I really have a strong sense of service to my local community, so I don’t have a problem with people at Huttcross also being my patients, or seeing them at the supermarket.
Work changed pretty much overnight - the eccentricities of funding in NZ are very different to the UK, and that definitely became apparent very quickly. It’s a strange situation where you imagine primary care being on the brink of financial destruction, even among a health crisis. On top of my practice-based work, I’ve also been doing a lot of work out in the community, because on April 1st I became the clinical director for Te Aro Kahurangi PHO, who have set up a number of community test facilities in more marginalised communities and making sure they have access to testing.
It’s actually been super fun!
We have a campervan, some cones, barriers, tape, swabs, medical equipment and some PPE, and we’ve been driving around making sure people can get tested. It reminded me a lot of the military work I’d done previously, actually.
Today I was over in Whainuiomata doing some testing and had my trail running kit with me so I could go for a run once work was done with. There are fewer requirements at the moment due to the change in alert levels.
CXDU: What’s life like for you right now off the bike? Has COVID-19 impacted your life in ways aside from work and cycling? If so, how?
KH: Life is pretty tiring at the moment - I’m working pretty long hours. I’m 5 days into a 10-day stretch of work, which is a longer stretch than I was doing before.
The rest of life is just more...difficult. I’m lucky that as an essential worker I get to jump the queue at the supermarket, otherwise it would take up a lot of my day. By the time I’ve worked and done the essential things there’s not a lot of time left in my day.
Another thing is that I’m working in scrubs now, rather than my own clothes - my ironing requirements have dropped dramatically! I’ve only got two sets of scrubs, so I have to stay on top of my laundry - otherwise I get to day three and I have to do a panic wash while throwing some toast down my neck.
The other thing - coffee! It was so good when they opened up contactless coffee here; I’d really missed that.
CXDU: What’s life like for you right now on the bike?
KH: I deliberately haven’t been outside on my bike - mainly because I live and work in the same community, and there is an awareness of cyclists maybe pushing the limits a bit, and riding further outside their communities than they really should.
“The last thing I want is for someone to misinterpret me commuting to work on my bike as me going for a long-ass training ride. I made that call really early on - it’s probably overkill, but I want to...lead by example, I guess.”
I’ve jumped on Zwift a few times, and mainly been getting out for a few runs. My training is probably a third of what I’d normally manage at this time of year, and my FTP is looking horrible!
CXDU: What’s helped you get through the crisis? Zoom calls with friends, Netflix binges, bike rides etc.?
Mainly calling friends and turning off the television. There’s so much COVID-related stuff at work because we have to stay abreast of daily regional public health updates and Ministry of Health updates. My family are in the UK, where the situation is horrible and the news is pretty dire.
It’s possible to feel pretty overwhelmed and isolated by it all, especially when you have no control over it.
I have deliberately not been putting the TV on when I get home, and I find a bit of yoga helps me manage. I’ve also been enjoying cooking and baking more lately - no Netflix binges though!
CXDU: Tell us about your involvement with the cyclocross community. How has it been impacted by COVID-19?
KH: Normally we’d be in the thick of our planning now, as our season was meant to start on the 27th of May, and we had really exciting stuff planned. We got 140 people along to a gravel grind back in January, and we’d planned to have a 5-race Huttcross series, culminating with the Aotearoa Crossfest in August.
It’s really hard to know what’s going to happen with any or all of that, to be honest - we’ll have to have a Huttcross committee meeting.
Cycling New Zealand have released some guidelines about what can be done under Alert Level 2, and while gatherings of up to 500 people are allowed, in terms of racing it’s hard to see how we could meet those [social distancing] requirements safely.
Because we operate on council land, I’m not convinced there would be much support for racing at the moment, even under Level 2 restrictions. Our access to private land is also limited in the Wellington region - we’ve got 2 areas that we can use privately, and I haven’t even asked them yet what their take might be.
Think about contact tracing - we can contact our competitors, and we could even potentially the family members of competitors, but if we have other spectators or even dog-walkers wandering past it starts getting really hard.
The other thing is that higher levels of government restrictions impact our MightyCross races - I don’t think there are many parents who’ll be willing to chuck their kids into that environment right now.
“My personal feeling - not a Huttcross feeling - is that we’re better waiting until we can run events properly, rather than trying to cobble together a makeshift solution in the meantime. ”
Aotearoa Crossfest and New Zealand Nationals has to take place under Level 1 restrictions for Cycling New Zealand to endorse it, and the UCI calendar is on hold until July. We’re also unsure what will happen if the UCI doesn’t sanction the race.
Another smaller consideration is that there are a number of New Zealanders based in Australia who may want to travel for the event - if they can’t compete due to travel restrictions, is it really a fair championship?
There would also be an issue around build up - there’d be very limited racing beforehand, and people who have been less observant of government restrictions may actually have an advantage if they’ve been riding regularly.
All of a sudden it becomes a sea of moral and ethical dilemmas, instead of just putting on a bloody cross race!
“I think there’s an opportunity for cross post-crisis - for a sport that calls itself community-minded, especially in Australia and New Zealand, we also have to think about how to protect our community. Just because you can do something under the rules, does that mean you should?”
I think there’s a general feeling among New Zealanders is that there won’t be much racing before October.
[Ed: Since this interview was recorded, Huttcross and Cycling New Zealand have come to the agreement that the Aotearoa Crossfest will not run in 2020. You can see the official statement from Cycling New Zealand here.]