MFG Course Designer – Rich Mcclung

Designing a cyclocross course is an art. We are proud to have Rich McClung as our artist. Rich brings many, many years of experience designing CX courses, and a honed point of view about how courses should be designed. He's super talented designing courses that are fast, fun and competitive, but also one of the nicest guys out there! 

See below an interview with Rich by Wayne Wakeman exploring Rich's background in cycling, course design, and racing.

On the day after Tadej Pogačar stormed away on his own to win the world road cycling championship, I pedaled down to Chainline Brewing in Kirkland to chat with Richard McClung.

Rich is a Cat 1 cyclocross racer, regularly finishing on the podium. But not only that, he also designs the courses! We talked about road and cyclocross racing, cyclocross course design, and plenty of other stuff too. Here is my write up of the discussion.

BACKGROUND AND ROAD RACING

Rich is from Wisconsin, and a big part of his life revolved around being on road racing teams in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Road racing was really good up there and he learned a lot. He advanced from local to regional to national level racing. For a few years he was on the US National Team and raced in Europe and Central and South America. Some of these races are described in great detail on Rich’s blog.

A highlight was a stage race in Arkansas with a group of eight coming to the line, 5 sprinters and 3 (including Rich) non-sprinters. And he won. In fact, he beat American cycling pioneer and Olympic medalist Davis Phinney in a sprint!

How’d he do it? Well, first he had great form; he was very strong at that time. But there was also an interesting tactical sequence. Those sprinters were kind of looking at one another, Phinney too. And then Davis Phinney jumped. Rich went with the move, and two other good sprinters, Dave Mann and Graham Miller, went too. But Phinney’s jump was short-lived. It was just a tactic to test the other guys. But never mind that, while the others eased, Rich pushed towards the line. Would that little head start of momentum get him to the line? He had tunnel vision as he gave it all. On either side, there appeared a wheel slowly creeping closer. And then he saw his wheel cross the line. Winner!

PATH TO SEATTLE CROSS

After the completion of his professional career, Rich went back to school, got married, eventually moving to California, where he bought a cyclocross bike and started racing cross. Later, the family moved up to this area, and its better cyclocross scene. And also road racing. And track, cause you know, we have a velodrome. In the end, however, he concentrated mostly on cross.

Seattle cyclocross back then was basically the Seattle Metro series. Rich watched the European races on whatever we had before YouTube and thought “Why are we doing all these races on single track?” He had a feeling the races would be more fun if they were more open for more passing opportunities. The UCI regulations specify three meters minimum width and some other key specifications that are designed essentially to make the course fairer for everyone. If you’re starting four rows back, you still have a reasonable chance of winning.

Terry Buchanan and Johnny Sun started the Starcrossed race, which later Terry took over and wanted to make it a UCI event. And Zac Daab came around then and suggested they start a cyclocross series, bringing Rich on as the course designer. Zac was really good at talking to people about venues. He was able to get ones that people didn’t think were possible, like Woodland Park, Magnuson, and Lake Sammamish.

So, now Rich had the venues, it was his time to step up and put his money where his mouth was. The “mission statement” for MFG was to create courses that respected the UCI rules as much as they could, recognizing that there may be some limits to what you can do at a local venue.

CYCLOCROSS COURSE DESIGN

In developing course designs, Rich initially started out by riding a bike around the area, discovering features and lines that were fun and challenging to ride. These days, he’s more likely to walk a venue, and work with property managers to see what the usable terrain is. The promoters will have opinions on where the start/finish area will be, and which direction.

One of the UCI rules is that the course has to be between 2.5 and 3.5 kilometers long, and the pits should be as close as possible to the middle. Using Google Earth, he visualizes how that might work to incorporate sets of technical features. And barriers too, if they are even needed.

A favorite racecourse was the 2019 Nationals course at Fort Steilacoom. The park managers were very accommodating and gave them a lot of leeway to cut away brush to create new lines. And working with Robert Trombley was great because he had some good suggestions about how to organize the downhills and run-ups on that hill.

Anyway, it was a great course and a great event. Juniors champion Andrew Strohmeyer said in an interview that this was the best course he’d ever raced in the United States. And not just because he won. He liked that the course used everything that was there. And, like a lot of European races, you would come up to these features the first time, stop and say “this is really scary”.

Another favorite was in 2019 at Kayak Point, the former golf course up past Tulalip. Precisely 2.5 km and the pits were perfectly positioned in the middle of the lap. That course was “cyclocross technical” in all the right ways. And it was a golf course, so you could ride through the sand traps and on the greens, which was a lot of fun and a bit surreal.

Rich’s philosophy about turns. Adding gratuitous turns to a straight just changes the race into a braking contest. You only need to have a turn for one of four reasons:

If you’re running into the end of your usable terrain
To take advantage of a technical feature
To get back to the pit
Create additional distance

“So if you just go straight for a long way and then have a 90 degree turn and maybe there’s just a little bit of terrain, you know, a little bit of a dip or a side angle. You know, do a turn there and stake it really carefully. And so what makes it technical is the speed you can do it at. And when you have a flat venue, that’s all there is. You know, don’t try to create something technical when there isn’t anything there.”

CYCLOCROSS RACE REFLECTIONS

When asked about racing career highlights, Rich recalls one of the National Championship races in Kansas City. This was December 2008, the second of two consecutive years they held Nationals in KC. At this venue, there was a big hillside. After the course started, it curved around and went up the hill, down, back up, and then came straight back down the hill and back to the pit.

Rich started in the ninth or tenth row of about 17 rows. He lined up on the right side to avoid the compression around the first tight left turn. That helped him be close to the front when they started climbing the hill. And then he started picking people off. He was in sixth place coming down the hill. One position away from a spot on the wide Natz podium.

Approaching the finish, and chasing Brent Prenzlow for that fifth place podium spot, there were some technical turny things and a few little humps before the turn on to the pavement. Rich thought he wasn’t going to be able to catch him. But then he noticed the guy was soft pedaling. He didn’t know Rich was back there. So Rich started sprinting and came past him with just enough time to throw his bike and take the 5^th place.

There have also been some great races with Ron Schmeer (another long-time, local phenom) at Magnuson. Ron beat him both times, but they were good battles where each was thinking how they’re going to beat the other. And trying to get away from the other, but the races still ended in sprints that Ron won. One time Rich went too early; the other time too late. It’s always a challenge to get sprint timing just right.

GEAR

Rich is a cantilever brakes holdout, but he just got a new Cervelo R5-CX. The new bike has all the modern features, including through axles and disc brakes.

On the road, he rides on a Fuji Road frame from 2011. He just loves how that road bike feels. He hasn’t done a road race in ages, but he loves road racing–the tactical play, the speed, the feeling of choosing the exact right time to attack. Those sorts of things.

wrap up

Huge thanks to Rich for taking some time out of his day to chat with me. The MFG courses he designed are one of the many reasons I fell in love with cyclocross. I’m looking forward to many more MFG races and keeping an eye out for Rich and the fast guys at the end of the day.