2009 will be remembered as the year of change for NM Cross. Change is good, even if there's no reason. I changed my underwear after last CX season, and I don't even have underwear. A number of years ago, possibly before the invention of goatheads, the cycling community in NM switched sanctioning bodies to ACA, leaving USCF for promises of positive change. It's funny how the fat tire dirties didn't see any sense in jumping off the mothership. After a few years under ACA and a year of JNCA, cross is back on the USAC mothership for 2009.

Should we be excited about this change? There's probably mixed feelings, as a few CXers race in Colorado each season, although some of the bigger events way up north are USAC also. So, what do we get out of this change? Other than just another sanctioning body change, as last year, our CX category will translate across the country with our now nationwide license. For many of us, we now have one sanctioning body for mtb, road, and cross. I won't mention the subtleties of the USAC benefits, you can look that stuff up while finishing off that half a bottle of Chimay leftover from the state championship race last December. That stuff is from the same manufacturer as the Twinkie; drink up, it's still good! (Did you really think "Twinkie" was English? You are a weak Belgiuminium!)

This change will be welcomed by some, and pissed on by others. But the show must go on, and we will be there, in the early hours, in the wind, in the rain (what rain?), and even in the heat of the early season events, to ride our "off road road bikes" in the odd conditions of a circuit that is called CYCLOCROSS! We will ride through sand, thorny little things that cause our tires to spit sealant all over our legs, tumbleweeds, the rare section of grass, pavement, grass clumps that send us off course, glass, trash dumps, parks, school grounds, mud bog bosque muck, and back to the car, only to do it all again.

So, what else is happening? You've noticed the website is evolving, and it will continue to change until it fits like a frozen glove. Images, videos, ramblings, from our community will be plugged in everywhere, even if they don't fit. The result will be an ugly, nauseating, confusing, disorienting, website that makes you think you just chugged a gallon of whole milk on a hot day and hopped on your X bike, trying to catch Ponytail Man up a steep sand hill.

Let's have some fun this year!

Anonymous Bovine