Two-time US women’s elite cyclo-cross champion Clara Honsinger will make her ‘cross debut for 2022-2023 for a doubleheader in Waterloo, Wisconsin, which includes the opening World Cup race of the year on October 9. She then plans to take in a pair of races in Fayetteville, Arkansas the next week before departing for Europe.
After an intense six months of road racing on the WorldTour level for the first time, the EF Education-TIBCO-SVB rider said she’s more than ready to reboot for the next four months and focus on her cyclo-cross campaign. That starts with racing, not resting, for both C1 days prior to the World Cups, the C1 Trek Cup in Wisconsin on October 7 and C1 OZ Cross race in Fayetteville on October 14, rather than resting.
“I may be starting the season a bit late, but I plan to race all the way through January,” Honsinger told Cyclingnews. “These races [Trek Cup and OZ Cross] are important to me because I haven't competed in a UCI CX race since Worlds last year. While I have been doing lots of group CX practice and local races in Oregon, I want to use these races as preparation for the first World Cups.
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“The ‘home’ World Cups are really important because it's our rare opportunity as North Americans to race in front of our race community and fans. I realise that it's a long season, but I would like to put on a good show at these US races.”
Honsinger's 2021-2022 ‘cross season covered 25 days of racing, with a second elite US title and an 11th place at Worlds in Fayetteville. She then moved directly to the road with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB and took on 25 more days of racing, where she earned top 30s at Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes and Paris-Roubaix Femmes and finished fourth in GC at UCI 2.2 Joe Martin Stage Race.
“I had a long road season beginning last March and just finishing up in late August. While I love to race on home soil and support the growing USCX series, I really needed the rest and time to train at home in Portland.”
Honsinger’s delayed ‘cross start this year caused her to miss three of four race weekends with US Cyclocross Series (USCX), the third stop taking place October 1-2 in Baltimore at Charm City Cross. Last year, Honsinger competed in four of the USCX races, winning the C1 contest at Charm City and adding a trio of second-place finishes.
She’ll be followed from the road to off-road by EF Education teammate Zoe Backstedt, who signed as a trainee with the US-based Women’s WorldTour team for the final months of this year. The young Briton is the defending women’s junior cyclo-cross world champion. Backstedt just added two more world titles in September to her resume, winning the junior titles in the road race and time trial in Wollongong.
“I think it's also fantastic that they signed Zoe Backstedt to the team. We raced and roomed together at some races in August and I am so impressed by her mature, focused, yet laid-back personality. I think we will have a lot of fun rolling around the CX scene.”
Backstedt will target a C2 race in Ardooie to begin her season on October 20, followed by a pair of C2s in Nommay on October 22-23.
By mid October, the Oregonian’s home base will be in Europe for a full schedule of the remaining 12 World Cup events, and one return to the US for the Cyclo-cross National Championships in Hartford, Connecticut, December 6-11.
“I will be targeting a few races, particularly Koppenberg and Overijse, and then back home for Nationals. I plan to focus more on these individual performances instead of racing every [one] on the CX calendar,” Honsinger told Cyclingnews.
Last season she raced with the highly-successful and now-defunct Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld programme, winning the X2O Badkamers Trofee round at Koppenbergcross and was fifth at the World Cup race in Overijse. EF Education has allowed her to continue with cyclo-cross and has kept her on familiar Cannondale equipment.
“It was really hard to have the green team fold last year and our hearts are still a little sore, but I'm really grateful and excited that EF Education-TIBCO-SVB took up the discipline," said Honsinger. "Under a new structure and with different staff, we all will have a lot to learn."
