Hey there Cyclismasses! Bill, here, from In The Crosshairs, to introduce a little video series we produce. It’s called #SVENNESS and in it we break down the week’s Euro-pro cyclocross races to give you some play-by-play of key moments. We also know that many #SVENNESS viewers are racers, too, so we sprinkle in some tips and techniques to help you in your own cyclocross battles. In a nutshell, #SVENNESS is a mix of ESPN’s Primetime (that was a show about a ball sport, cycling friends) and VH1’s Pop Up Video.

Sounds great, Bill, but why is it called SVENNESS? Good question. It’s named after arguably the best cyclocross racer of our time, Sven Nys. To my ears, when the broadcasters on Sporza pronounce his name it sounds like Svenness. He has one of those names that you must always say the first and last together. At least it sounds better that way. So #SVENNESS became this way of describing the sublime in cyclocross. Clinical tactics, a beautiful pass, when done masterfully, it was #SVENNESS.

Oh, here’s a fun takeaway for you: the series could easily have been called “A moment of Sven” or even “Everything Sven,” but #SVENNESS, for whatever reason, stuck. I think we made the right call.

Thanks for watching.

#SVENNESS 2.8 from In The Crosshairs on Vimeo.

In SVENNESS episode 2.8 we visit the Hamme-Zogge stop of the Superprestige cyclocross series. It is muddy and there is a flyover at every turn. But more significant (,or maybe not) Sven Nys is riding disc brakes!! But in the end, this race wasn’t about disc brakes but about perseverance. Niels Albert runs into the barriers and gets turned completely around in the first 30 seconds of the race. He slowly chips away at his deficit and by the end is soon back in contention. For this race we focus on riding in the mud, the run vs. ride decision, the picket fence, and flyovers flyovers flyovers.

Please visit www.cyclocrossbook.com to learn more about Skills, Drills and Bellyaches: A Cyclocross Primer. It’s all you need to know to create your own SVENNESS on the cyclocross track. And the sale of this book helps us to continue producing these SVENNESS videos. It’s a win-win.

Also check out our shirts, socks, gloves and WTFkits waterbottles at http://www.crosshairscycling.com/shop/. The SVENNESS shirt is sold out but we are coming out with a second design shortly. So stay tuned for that.

Music in today’s episode is by:

Flume & Chet Faker: https://soundcloud.com/futureclassic/flume-chet-faker-drop-the-3

We The Wild: https://soundcloud.com/wethewild/daisy-may-3

and

Ayer: https://soundcloud.com/officialayer/circle-down

Footage via Vier: http://www.vier.be/tags/cyclocross

Thanks for watching.