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On her way to the first of four Crank Bros. wins (Image credit: Russ & Nancy Wright)

Ann Knapp is having a brilliant 2004 cyclocross season. The former U.S. national champion (2002) won the U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross and locked up an automatic slot on the national team for worlds. Coming out of the domestic season in dominating form after finishing third at the US 'Cross Nationals, Knapp is maybe America's biggest chance to make an impact in St. Wendal at the 'cross worlds in February.

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You see, although racing is important in her life, it's not everything. Knapp doesn't race to make her living, for example. A physical therapist based in Des Moines, Washington, Knapp trains only after work, riding and running when the weather allows and the spirit moves her. She enjoys a casual, no-pressure relationship with Kona, her sponsor for years, is married to her teammate (Dale Knapp) and is seen laughing and hugging competitors after races are over. She's careful to plan her work vacation schedule so she can make the long weekend trips to compete in East Coast 'cross races without affecting her day job. She even has health insurance.

So in all, Knapp lives a balanced life, and cycling doesn't own her soul. Until she enters a race. The moment Knapp bursts off a cyclocross start line, she becomes a relentless antagonist, always pressing the front of the race. Her legs turn to steel ribbons. Her eyes explode with effort, her face locks in a grimace. She says she likes her racing with "full and competitive fields - to make the race harder."

AK: I did mountain bike racing first. I even traveled around and did the NORBA thing for two years. I loved it - it was so much fun. I started as a beginner. I think I switched to expert one time when I drove for like five hours to do a race and we were going to ride five miles. I said: 'I'm not driving for five hours to race five miles,' and switched to expert. I turned pro for the last couple of years I raced. We had a pretty good series in the Seattle area to race as well. We had a Wednesday night race series. We also had, although they just quit this last year, what they called the WIM series - it was Washington, Idaho and Montana. It was put on by a group called Round and Round. I've also done a couple of 24-hour races. In fact, I did one just this last year, the NORBA national championship in Spokane. And our team won (laughs). How's that for funny. It was a women's team and I don't think too many people came and did the race.

AK: I did. And it was totally fun. My teammates were a local bunch of gals who were doing the race and said they needed another person. We had fun. By the end, we only had two of us left because one gal had to go to the hospital; she crashed and had to go get stitches. We did the race totally for fun, just something to do for camaraderie. It wasn't like we set out to go and claim the title, but it was a nice bonus.

AK: A guy named Dan Norton. He is amazing. He is like the five or six time-national masters cyclocross champion. I was in a mountain bike race and Dan and another guy, Tim Rutledge, who are kind of like pioneers of Seattle area cyclocross, said to me, 'you should try cyclocross.' I feel lucky that we have a great 'cross scene up here and I loved it right away. Some of the top women in cyclocross are centered in the Northwest. It makes for good competition.

AK: If you look at the big, organized races, the field sizes are pretty comparable. Our local races for women here in Seattle probably draw 10 to 15 women. It's solid but not huge. Not like Portland where they might get 30, 40 or 50 women in a local race. They've got it going on there. The terrain is different in the West from the East as well. If you look at a place like Gloucester (Massachusetts), that's something of a treat. It's a place where you can ride in a wide-open grassy park. We don't have that very often here, because people get upset about ruining the grass.

AK: For one cyclocross season, about four or five months long, I wasn't working. That was great. During that time, I'd run in the morning and bike in the afternoon. But you can't be away from my profession too long. I worried that I would lose my skills. I work in an orthopedic clinic and need to help patients of all ages and all types of injuries. You need to keep your skills sharp to stay good at it.

AK: That's the thing. I didn't really start bike racing until after I had gone to school. After going to school for that long, you can't just hang it up and pretend you're going to make a living being a bike racer. I was already working before I got into bike racing and it's been good - I make a living and have health insurance. It's hard to have all those things you need for bike racing without money. And you get that from a job.

AK: I ride with my husband Dale and a friend of mine. We ride just about every day together. But what's really cool about Seattle is that we have an organized cyclocross practice once a week. About 70 people show up. It's held in a big park, under lights, and usually runs from 6:30 to 8:30 every Wednesday. Dale and a bunch of guys act as coaches and everybody does barriers or hills - different drills. Then we all have a timed, practice racing session - for people to go hard. It's a huge benefit to me as a racer and makes all the difference in the world to my training. Because of my experience with this weekly practice, I recommend that anybody with a group of four or more should find some place to meet once a week and do something just like it.

AK: I go mostly by how I feel. Sometimes it's based on the weather - when it's raining, you don't last very long in 40 degree weather. I race once a week and have the practice once a week so I get two hard sessions to see where my fitness is and the rest of the week I just ride and run. But it's not like I'm following some specific training plan. I like to ride my bike all year. After coming back from world's, I usually like to take a little break. I like to do some skiing while there's snow. But then I just kind of start up and ride.

AK: The qualifications have changed every single year that I've raced so I don't remember what they were that year. I do remember that it was a big surprise. And it was so fun. That first year, I went early to Europe with my teammate. We did a bunch of races and had no idea what we were doing. It was so exciting. Just being in Europe was so cool. Every little thing was this new adventure. We were freak shows with our bikes because not many people from the U.S. had come over there, ever.

And no women because there was never a women's world's; we were this new thing. We did a race in Holland, a couple in Germany. This is how it was different than racing in the U.S. - you don't pay to race. Sometimes you get paid start money. Sometimes you get paid prizemoney. We were racing and actually making money. That hadn't been our intent at all, we just wanted to go and see what it was like to race there. Anyway, world's was an amazing experience because the spectators line the whole course two and three deep. There's this energy about it and it's pretty cool.

AK: Yeah. It was amazing. All during the race, the next gal wasn't that far behind me, so I had to keep going. There was a part where you transition from grass to the pavement of the finishing straight. Only then did I know I was going to win. Then I could let myself think about it. I always wondered how those people felt when they finished you know. When their arms were up. I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to cry or smile. It all kind of came out at once.

AK: Kona, and Mark Petersen, our team manager, put on a race every year up in Bellingham (that's where Kona is based). Mark approached me at that race and asked if I was interested in riding for Kona. It was just out of the blue. Kind of luck for me. And the relationship has been great ever since. Every year we chat and decide what Kona wants to do or what can Kona do. Riding for Kona is a blessing. I think that nowadays, if you have a deal with anybody, you hang onto it, because the bike industry is not as lucrative as it used to be. Riders can't demand salaries or concessions from their sponsors any more. You're lucky if you have anything.