How I learned to stop worrying about the stutter step and love cyclocross

I think I'm going into my 5th season of cyclocross, and maybe the 6th season of racing bikes. For me, a full season has been around 3-5 road events (including gravel races), another 5 or 6 mountain bike races, and then 6-7 cyclocross races. A big portion of those are the wed night beer league, where we have 4 mtb races and 6 cross races. Outside of those I don't get out much and have actually never even left town for a cross race. The only "real" cross race I've done is Rolling Thunder, and I've done that I think 3 times. Every year I intend on doing more of the wild west series, and every year it seems not to happen. Mostly because it costs money to go drive somewhere and race and I always seem to wind up kind of broke in the fall. The other is that it's the end of the year and prime time for slacking off and drinking beers.

Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, cross racing, and racing in general, and the fact that I am not actually all that experienced or good at it. In cyclocross, you have that added challenge of needing to get off and back on your bike for runups, barriers, and other obstacles. if you are not good at running the barriers and other obstacles, and carrying speed through corners and difficult sections, you won't do very well even if you have the best fitness. The other side if this is that if you are good at doing those things, you will do better in races even if you aren't the fastest guy at wed worlds. While the pros make it look so easy and fast and smooth, getting to that point takes work, and I had not been doing enough.


So first you've got to get off the bike. As you approach the barrier, swing your leg over, unclip the right foot, grab the top tube, and drop on the ground and start running and pick up the bike.

Step behind the bike, not through. Stepping through is a good way to trip onto your face if that foot doesn't come out, perhaps because the shoe/pedal is jammed up with sand or mud. If your pedals are sticky you should also give yourself a little more space to that first barrier.

Try to pick your bike straight up from the top tube and make sure it's high enough to get over the barriers (this is why you should keep your arm/elbow inside the saddle and not "suitcase" it). Then don't just drop it on the ground. You want to set it down firmly but gently and hold it down while you take that first step or two so it's not bouncing around when you try to remount, and to keep the cranks in place and the chain from falling off (less of an issue with clutched rear derailleurs)

Ok, now comes the harder part- getting back on.

Here's a video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AaVFMSY-Ow

Seems fairly straightforward, right? For a long time I could never fully commit to the move, and I'd always drag my left foot on the ground. This is known as the stutter step, or crow hop as I more recently heard. It's slower. Instead of pushing off and giving yourself more speed, you're slowing down. Remounting slower means you have to accelerate more to get back up to speed. Before I figured this out, the guys I had the fitness to ride with would gain a little space every time over the barriers. That's not sustainable and it doesn't take long before you can't close the gaps and watch them ride away.

The first thing they say is start slow. The remount is like a big step onto the bike, not so much a jump. So at a walking pace, get your right leg over the seat, push off with the left, and there you go. Do it over and over again, and then gradually pick up the pace. I went and did this. Anything more than a brisk walk and that left foot was dragging. Digging in a little further, I found some other tips. These videos from Cody Kaiser and Joe Maloney do a great job at breaking down the mechanics of the remount and explain exactly how you should be doing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPIoBYTRBbw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-0dyrUyEvI&t=9s 

These seem really helpful, and I went down the rabbit hole of Cody Kaiser videos. But I was still stutter stepping.

Then I heard one more tip, supposedly from Tim Johnson, where you want to concentrate on just getting that thigh up on the saddle and coasting. Don't worry about your pedals, just take a step and get that leg on the bike and roll a bit with both feet off the pedals and off the ground. Then start picking up the pace (I thought it was from this article but he doesn't seem to mention that).

Maybe it was just that, or maybe it was the cumulation of all the previous work, but the first time I went out and tried that it started working. And that was it. Watching some videos, reading some tips, and numerous days of actually going out and practicing. It is so nice to not dread every trip over the barriers, and to not lose space to the guys you are riding with in a race.

To recap, here are the things I think about doing when I'm remounting:

Firstly, and mainly, it's just pushing off and getting that leg on the saddle. And leg is really the key thing. That fear of landing on the junk was a big hold back for me, and once I focused more closely on how I was getting on the saddle, it clicked. For me it wasn't so much how I was putting my feet or how my arms and body were bent but getting that inner thigh on the seat.


Hope that helps. The really key thing is to go out and practice, so go find a park and get some weird looks. Maybe build yourself some pvc barriers too.

Update- hey check out this picture of me doing a cool remount