About this design
English World Cyclo X Champions are rare, in fact there may only be one: Stuart Marshall. The Place was a very muddy Lembeek in Belgium 1986.
Cyclo cross is intense, hard and lonely. The races are shorter than conventional road racing, typically go off from the gun and are raced at a significantly higher intensity. Finally there is no place to hide, no place where you can sit on for a bit of rest. There is more to go wrong, the conditions and terrain typically provide any number of excuses for failure. In the video clip of the penultimate lap You will see Stuart exploit the fact that man with wheel is faster than man on foot to gap his rivals. As they wrestle with the mud he mounts the bike before they do and applying a real effort and considerable skill - you try staying upright on a racing bike in that sort of mudbath - makes his break. And what about the way they can get on and off, blink and you will miss it.
Stuart Marshall's effort here seems to me the epitome of someone who dared to fail. I think it ranks right up there with Chris Hoy's first Olympic Gold Medal. Stuart Marshall must have been very unfancied before the start but apparently unfazed by the prospect of failure put it all in anyway . Celebrate a great sporting achievement wear our World Champion 1986 t shirt. Image courtesy of Phil O'Connor. www.philoconnor .com