u/nervouswondering

CX seems to have issues the past decade. ...Except for a few places, like Chi. In the meantime, Gravel has taken off and those bikes could easily be used in CX events except for Elites. I would think that anyone giving CX a try these days using a gravel bike with like 40-50mm tires would find the features and handling to be dang reasonable. The harsh chatter faded away.

I just did my first CX race in years yesterday and I only saw a handful of 33mm bikes. Lots of gravel bikes with wide tires. They should have been slaying that course!

...I also noticed some new racers not know how to air-down their gravel tires. They were riding pretty firm and bouncy despite smooth gliding on a platter being handed to them.

This was a popular race but pretty casual -- winner ended up on a full-sus MTB! Who cares.

Anyway, it seems like several kinds of popular bikes might have been easier than a CX bike to play on this course with.

I've been busy the last few yrs and outta the loop. Made new friends in a CX town nearby so decided to start playing again. Back 5 yrs ago when I last did a sizable race (before gravel killed it) I had a new guy ask me if it was ok that he used his gravel bike, if I thought it would work. People just don't understand? What kind of problem is that? Is it that CX is not communicating with the world? He had a carbon bike with 45mm tires and was "concerned" that his bike might not work. Huh? Dang, I'd love to have a bike like that! I'm still using my 2010 bike with barely enough clearance for 38mm. Cross is casual at the fun level. Doesn't anyone tell ppl this? Ride what ya got! My bike was fine, too. But it was funny to have a cross bike stand out as "old fashioned" at a cross race! ...And I was the ONLY one with glue-messy rims!

Are we really getting all the best story lines to keep our sport alive in the USA? It seems like the podcast is really important. I know I love it. It focuses on a half a dozen of our lead racers. Maybe one or two of them go to Europe. Can the people really carry the sport? I think our media people understand story lines carry the day. But they limit it to our handful of best racers. [I'll try to break this into paragraphs...]

A couple other factors sneak in. I would say the venue is a character. We like hearing about the ones we like. The conditions also really matter. So we hear about those two story lines a fair bit.

But there's yet another one that I think might get short changed: the events. Our events don't always have our best racers but they have lives of their own. But we only hear about the ones that our national riders attend. Aren't there another half a dozen events that are amazing and have stories of their own? I don't dig into googling what events we have anymore, but I really appreciated learning about them back when we had a paper magazine. Like what about that junkyard race I think it was in Philadelphia? Now these aren't storylines that stretch through a whole season but it seems like they're important.

Heck even fan behavior might be a storyline worth more coverage than we've been seeing. What about the guy in the ghillie suit who used to creep around the courses invisibly strewing hundreds of dollars?

I know there was a movement away from hand ups and maybe costumes in the attempt to make our sport more serious 15 years ago. But times change. Is the serious way the best way to bring it back?

So I found out that I was excluded from one of my favorite schools. The principal told my agency it was because: *I'm not good with Lower El, *Can't handle the technology, and *Can't do behavior management. ...I've been subbing in two dozen schools every day of the school year for the past 2 years, plus was building sub for Lower El for 2 years before that, in different buildings. Good reviews all around. I'd say my reputation is for strengths in the areas this principal listed as reasons why she excluded me. Very odd! So I asked the agency to doublecheck with her about what's up. She said she couldn't remember the dates or details but they didn't want me. Well, that's fine! But I don't want other admins to see the malarkey she wrote! It's unsubstantiated! I can't believe she couldn't find a teacher who I worked for in her building to say she had made those complaints.

...Which leads me to the next thing. There is a sub in the building that excluded me who inspired me to call security in a building where I was working long-term 5th because I emailed her that it would be helpful if she reminded her son about our expectations because he was distracting the class. I also said he was a great kid but just needed a reminder. I didn't know she was a sub. But it was a polite email from me as I tried to tame the room. His best buddy was unstoppably chatty so I wanted to work on both of them so we could get work done. She and her husband came in yelling at me, going to tell the super on me. WHOA! It was traumatizing. (This was a famously privileged school.) I almost have a suspicion she got the principal where she worked to exclude me. What's weirder, a exclusion with no remembered basis, or inventing something because your pal asked you to?

Anyway, I was hoping the agency would change the exclusion to the rationale the principal gave: "I don't recall the situation, but don't want him here." That would be acceptable. Bonkers but more accurate than the reasons she gave. I don't want to be there, either, if she doesn't want me! I just don't want people from other schools to get a wrong impression if there is no basis. A lot of secy's call me to work their Lower El, and I'm known to be good with high-needs rooms. I want them to keep calling.

I know we subs rank at the bottom, but whew.

Or maybe the principal could go over the last two days I worked there, say, and see if the teachers could help her remember why they booted me. If something REAL happened, that's when it would have happened. I can find that info but the agency doesn't want anyone excluded to contact the building. I'm curious: what the heck happened? Nobody seems to know or care.

I suppose most secy's never check on this stuff? But I will be applying to be building sub again and they might check that background info. And they might think it's real! I don't want to say "Hey if you check my history and see something from school X, here's the scoop..." Do I have any hope?