Retiring from cyclocross (again and again)

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Second one day...(Image credit: Russ & Nancy Wright)

For Gina Hall, cyclocross is like some sadistic force, an unexplainable gravitational energy, directed specifically at her, that keeps sucking her back to the sport no matter how many times she tries to quit. Cyclingnews' Steve Medcroft talked with the seven-year pro from Northern California while she worked in some warm-weather prep in the Bay area before nationals - to find out of she thought she'd ever be able to break free of cyclocross.

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Gina Hall: I was a pro mountain biker on various teams for about 10 years. Which is really how I got started in the whole racing thing. I had been 'cross racing about seven or eight years for fun and to keep fit for mountain biking. In my last season mountain bikng, I raced with the Luna team. One of my teammates started up the Clif Bar cyclcross team, so I switched my attention full time to 'cross. That was two years ago. I love cyclocross. I grew up in the Bay area and we have a really good series here (Surf City Cyclocross). There's a ton of 'cross racing here.

GH: Yeah, you're right. I live in Ashland, although I'm in the Bay area right now, in Berkeley. Which is where I used to live until about five months ago. I keep referring to it as my home but I don't live here anymore. The winter has been a bit of a struggle, to be honest with you. In the Bay area, we really don't get our weather until later on in the season and the most we get is a bunch of rain. The 'cross racing here is never horrendous. There's never a terrible mud bath like further north. Every once in a while we'll get a muddy race. I mean one. Then you clean your bike and it's nice again. Up in Ashland this year, it's been very cold. It has actually snowed already, so I've found it challenging to get out and train.

GH: I ran back, tail between my legs (laughs). Anyway, as for 'cross racing - last year was the final year of the Clif Bar team. We had a great team and did really well for two years. Carmen D'Aluisio and I went to Belgium as part of a training camp. Then we stayed over and raced in Belgium and France before meeting up with the national team to do the world championships. That couple of months in Europe really developed our 'cross skills and racing technique.

GH: You can. Even the women. I think it's the start money that does it. Their prize money is probably not even as good as our prize money, which is not great, but they get start money. Like Daphny Van Den Brand, she gets good start money. What you get is probably based on your previous season. Daphne's been a world champion. Carmen and I were the top ranked U.S. women at the time, which was good for the promoters. So they paid us to start.

GH: I think it was kind of a novelty. It may have even been the first time that two U.S. women have come over so early and for that length of time, so they were excited. Just to be clear though, several U.S. women have gone over and done races. But there's a time between Christmas and New Year's when there are 'cross races almost every day in Belgium and Holland. Carmen and I were trying to hit that season for experience. And it paid off. Racing over there is a lot different than racing here: courses are different, the competitors are harder and there are more of them. Every race, even the little ones, would be a challenge. We'd go to these little tiny races in Holland and the road world champion would show up for example. I'd be like, 'Oh great. How about an easy race for once?' It was awesome.

GH: It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco to go to San Francisco State. I bought a mountain bike, an MB3 (Bridgestone), just for casual riding. Then a housemate moved in with us and she had exactly the same bike. We became instant riding buddies. There used to be singletrack trails in Golden Gate Park and we'd go down there and play around. We also met up with a group of bike messengers and we'd ride over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Headlands. It was a lot of fun.

GH: That same housemate. We used to have these big classic races here, like Revenge of the Siskiyous. My roommate went up and did one and when she came back, she talked about how fun it was so I thought I'd give it a try. I entered as a sport racer and won my first race. I was in school and thought this was a fun diversion and I had a blast. These were casual races - you'd go up with your friends and camp out. After racing, the promoter would put on a big spaghetti feed. I ended up doing well. I turned pro and was sponsored by Joe Breezer and raced for the Breezer team. I think I was 29 or 30. I did it for the challenge - to see how I would do in the pro race. I never, ever planned on racing professionally. Once I turned pro though, I had to take it seriously.

GH: Last year was my official retirement. Carmen and I even did what we called a farewell tour with the Clif Bar team. I've always felt that when I plateaued in racing, it would be time for me to stop and move on to something else. I felt like I had reached that point so then this year I moved up to Ashland to break away from the whole cycling scene, to do something else. Ashland is pretty small. I went there to work on a house that I bought. Then Ann Grande (Knapp) came to visit and we did some mountain biking. She talked me into racing again. I did it really casually. I was like, 'Well, I'll just go see how I do.' I didn't commit to anything more than that. I didn't have any sponsorship for those first two Crank Brothers (U.S. Gran Prix of Cyclocross) races either. I got second in the first race and won the second day. Bruce (Fina), the guy who was promoting it said 'you have a leader's jersey so you have to go to the next one.' At that point I was dragged back into it. So I figured I might as well get serious.

GH: Three. It's such an unbelievable experience, not like anything you could experience here. The crowds are huge and fanatical. I went to the Belgium world championships the first time and there were 50,000 spectators. I cracked just at the sight of all those people. They were leaning into the course, three deep the entire way. You couldn't hear anything because the noise was deafening. They are just so enthusiastic about cyclocross. Especially in Belgium. They went insane that the World's were there.