Flag, mullets and beer. They're not just for Belgians anymore.

Wow. What a weekend.

The courses. The crowds. The competition. I’m still hung over. Not from the Boulder Beer Cyclocross Ale I had after Sunday’s race, but from the sheer energy of the whole weekend.

It’s been more than six years since the Colorado cycling community has been able to host a big time cyclo-cross race and it seemed as though everyone was pumped up. I’m not sure what the estimated crowd size was, but there had to have been a few thousand on hand.

The last time I raced through screaming crowds like that was at the 1999 Cyclo-cross Nationals at the Presidio in San Francisco. If you were there back in ‘99, you know what I mean. If you weren’t, just imagine riding past hundreds of people screaming at the top of their lungs urging you to ride faster. I was hurting so bad during Sunday’s race the vocal encouragement was all that kept me going.

As I walked around the expo area on this past weekend it was great to see so many local faces, racers and non-racers, young and old, enjoying the warm fall weather and a well-organized event. It was also great to see all the racers having a good time, too.

Even the kiddies know a good race when they see one.

As I was chatting with a few friends, Luna Chix rider Katerina Nash came up to me and said she watch my ‘cross skills videos on Velonews.com. I guess they helped her out because she raced well all weekend. On second thought, maybe if Katerina hadn’t watched them she might have placed higher, but I hope not.

I always assumed local races would boost the sport and spark interest in people to try their hand at racing. As a bike shop owner, I now know this is true because in the past two days we have received numerous e-mails and calls about cyclo-cross bikes and racing.

One customer wrote in, “I had a ridiculous amount of fun at the races last weekend...I'm so in for next season, I can hardly wait.” And that is just what cyclo-cross is, a ridiculous amount of fun.

Hats off to promoters Russ Kappius and Chris Grealish. They each designed very unique courses, put together a strong army of volunteers together and helped put Colorado cyclo-cross racing back on the map. I am not sure if the US Gran Prix will return to Colorado next year, but I can’t see why not.

I’ve got some local Colorado racing this upcoming weekend and after that it’s off to the cyclo-cross hotbeds of Portland and Seattle for the last two Crank Brothers US Gran Prix races of the season. I’ll be traveling with my former TIAA-CREF/Clif Bar teammates and knowing that crew, I should have plenty of funny things to write about.

Thanks for reading.