New Zealand National CX Championships 2024: Course Preview
It’s time for the biggest day of cyclocross racing in the Land of the Long White Cloud - the New Zealand National Cyclocross Championships and Aotearoa Crossfest. The organising team from local club SouthernCross CX are pumped to welcome racers from all over the country to Motukarara Raceway, half an hour’s drive south of Christburch.
This weekend will mark the fifth running of the fun-focused Aotearoa Crossfest (ACXF) in conjunction with the serious business of the New Zealand Cyclocross National Championships. Although the UCI-sanctioned National Cyclocross Championships during the early afternoon will be the main draw of the day, there’s a reason for referring to the whole weekend as Aotearoa Crossfest, as Hüttcross president Kim Hurst explained to us in an interview in 2021.
“[ACXF was] a little thing that I dreamt up in 2017 while I was racing in the [United] States. To call it just CX Nationals was probably going to be a mistake...having a festival weekend of cyclocross including some full-noise Elite racing was a way better way to go. That way the racing snakes can race fast, and everyone else can race hard - just at different paces.”
How will that translate to the racing on the day?
The racetrack sections at Motukarara Raceway offer up a variety of different line choices for riders.
Photo: Dom Blissfield
Photo: Cycling New Zealand
The Racing Schedule
Whereas the New Zealand National Championships and Aotearoa Crossfest have been spread across a racing weekend in previous years, in 2024 all the action is happening on Saturday.
The first practice session kicks off at 8am, giving riders a 45 minute window to get a few sighting laps in and dial in their favourite lines.
The first of the age group championship races will kick off at 9am, with the Junior Men- the first of the UCI-sanctioned national championships - starting at 11:30am.
The Junior Women will race at the head of a wave of age-group women’s races at 12:30pm, before the Elite Women and U23 Women race for the silver fern jersey at 1:30pm.
The last of the UCI-sanctioned races will be the Elite Men and U23 Men at 2:40pm, before the much less formal Aotearoa Crossfest racing starts.
This will give the newly crowned national champions a chance to rub shoulders with club racers from all over NZ - we know if we’d just won a silver fern jersey we’d be having a lot of fun in the Hand Up race!
Riders tackle the dirt track at Motukarara Raceway during Southern Cross CX’s club round in June.
Photo: Dom Blissfield
The Course
To give you an idea of what this weekend’s course will look like, here’s the map of the course for the weekend, with the race circuit marked in dark blue.
After starting behind the venue’s grandstand, riders will pass the pits on the gentle sweeping corner at the end of the starting straight.
They’ll then turn onto the gravel of Motukarara Raceway for a long, flat power section that is sure to string out most fields, with only a handful of corners to allow some opportunity for a rest.
Riders will then head to the western end of the course and complete a small spiral that will give leaders a chance to judge the distance of any gap to those chasing behind. This section is very likely to cut up and become slippery as the day goes on, meaning there could be a few low-speed tumbles here if riders overbalance.
After a couple more grassy turns riders will pass the pits for the second time, before heading uphill to the highest point of the course, on a section steep enough that most riders will have to carry their bikes.
The descent off the hill will bring riders into ‘Carnage Corner’, a steep and muddy downhill left-hander that brought plenty of riders unstuck at SouthernCross CX’s club round in June.
Even if riders are able to hold it upright and stay on their bikes until the end of the descent, the course’s barriers are positioned at the bottom of the hill, after a left-hand corner - necessitating that all but the most skilled of riders will need to slow down and dismount.
Once riders have remounted the finish line is in sight, but only after negotiating a succession of tight hairpin corners that will be sure to test the nerve of any race leaders.
Photo: Dom Blissfield
The crowd gathers expectantly at Carnage Corner.
Photo: Dom Blissfield
As if Carnage Corner wasn’t tricky enough on its own, you’ll probably have to steer around fallen riders too!
Photo: Dom Blissfield
The Weather
The current forecast is for fine and sunny conditions in Motukarara for championship Saturday, with temperatures due to reach a high of 12ºC.
The track was damp and muddy for the club round of Southern Cross CX after a wet winter in Canterbury, and we’re expecting plenty of bikes will get dirty during this weekend’s racing. Good thing there are showers at the venue!
Photo: MetService
What are your thoughts about this weekend’s New Zealand CX National Championships? Will you be there? Got a hot tip for the win?
Let us know in the comments below!