Datamining Crossresults, Part 1

As crossresults.com starts its seventh season, with a results database now tipping the scales at 478,000 results, I thought it would be fun to do some proper data mining while we're all STOKED and just waiting for the season to start. Meg Curry, the Gloucester sponsorship coordinator, asked me if the sold-out Gloucester women's 3/4 field was the biggest women's field in US CX history, so let's start there.

Sadly, it's not. The field limit at Gloucester was 125, but that was shared with the Cub Junior field -- and on Day 1 of the Gloucester GP the 3/4 Women's field recorded 103 finishers. That's impressive, but not quite big enough to take top honors -- in 2010, Cross Crusade: Alpenrose Dairy logged 106 Beginner Women to take the crown of "biggest women's category ever."

Coming in 3rd? The 2009 National Championships Elite Race, with 102 racers -- the biggest elite race in the database. The full list of the top women's fields:

Largest Fields, Women

Date	Race	Category	# of racers
10/3/2010	Cross Crusade: Alpenrose Dairy	Beginner Women	106
10/1/2011	Great Brewers Gran Prix of Gloucester Day 1	Amateur Women	103
12/13/2009	Cross Nationals Day 4	Women - Elite	102
10/2/2011	Great Brewers Gran Prix of Gloucester Day 2	Amateur Women	100
10/3/2010	GP of Gloucester Day 1	Cat 3/4 Women	99
12/12/2010	Cross Nationals Day 5	Women Cat 1/2/3 Elite	97

So, if I was writing Gloucester sponsorship proposals, I would say that Gloucester had the "biggest women's cyclocross field in the history of USACycling." Heh*.

* - I just realized that Jeff Bramhall already made this joke on the internet, and my brain convinced me it had come up with that line on its own. BAD BRAIN! NO COFFEE!

While Cross Crusade has the top spot for women, the next five races are outside the Pacific Northwest. On the men's side, though, things are different:

Largest Fields, Men

Date	Race	Category	# of racers
10/2/2011	Cross Crusade #1	Masters 35+ C	217
11/8/2009	SSCXWC	Men SSCXWC	213
10/3/2010	Cross Crusade: Alpenrose Dairy	Masters 35+ C	212
10/24/2010	Cross Crusade: Portland International Raceway	Masters 35+ C	203
10/16/2011	Cross Crusade #3	Masters 35+ C	197
11/13/2011	Cross Crusade #8	Masters 35+ C	192

Yeah. Week in and week out, the 35+ C race at Cross Crusade is RIDICULOUSLY HUGE. The only thing to compete with it at all is the 2009 Singlespeed CX World Championships (also in Cross Crusade land!) In fact, you have to go all the way down to the 16th place to find a non-Cross Crusade Masters 35+ C race on the list, the Men B 35+ race from 2006 CX Nationals (with 160 finishers). To find a non-Nationals, non-Crusade race, you have to go all the way to 27th, where GP Gloucester Day 1 shows up with 150 Amateur Men.

If you're curious, the biggest field ever recorded in Euro? Masters World Champs, 2010, Men 45-49. 78 racers. Ha! Euros ain't got nothin on this!

For women, Azencross Loenhout sets the bar with 58 Elite women in 2008.

Of course, sometimes it's not the SIZE of the field, it's the SPEED of the field, right? Using our glorious crossresults.com points system (not to be confused with the poor imitation found of USACycling.org, lately), we can look through the database and find out which race had the most scrub-free, average-fastest race field show up.

Hey guess what the top five races are all in Europe!

Fastest Average Fields, Men

Date	Race	Field	Number of Racers	Average Racer Points
2/5/2012	Superprestige Hoogstraten	Elite Men GvA	29	132.18
2/12/2011	Superprestige Noordzeecross Middelkerke	Elite Men GvA	28	136.28
2/6/2011	Superprestige Hoogstraten	Elite Men GvA	26	136.56
2/11/2012	Superprestige Middelkerke	Elite Men GvA	32	138.06
1/8/2012	Belgian National Championship	Elite Men GvA	16	140.56

So yeah, small races in Belgium? TERRIFYING. Same story on the women's side, although, since the Superprestige series doesn't think women are people, it's all World Cups:

Fastest Average Fields, Women

Date	Race	Field	Number of Racers	Average Racer Points
1/16/2011	World Cup #7	Elite Women GvA	29	286.10
12/26/2011	World Cup #6	Elite Women GvA	28	291.89
1/15/2012	World Cup #7	Elite Women GvA	26	297.59
1/29/2012	World Championships	Elite Women GvA	32	300.76
2/13/2011	Internationale Cyclo-cross Heerlen GP Heuts	Elite Women GvA	16	301.03

But hey, you're reading this from AMERICA, so you really want to know where the hardest races in AMERICA have been, right?

Fastest Men's Fields Outside Europe

Date	Race	Field	Number of Racers	Average Racer Points
10/6/2007	Whitmore's Landscaping Super Cross Day 1	Elite Men	27	199.18
11/6/2011	Cincy3 Harbin Park	Men UCI Elite Men	30	201.35
11/12/2011	USGP Cyclocross-Derby City Cup	Men Pro/Cat 1	60	202.33
11/18/2007	USGP Mercer Cup p/b Knapp's Cyclery	Men Pro/Cat 1	47	203.58
12/11/2011	USGP of Cyclocross Round #8	Men Cat 1/2	50	204.73

Unsurprisingly, we see three USGP's on the list, but none of them were harder than CRAZY MYLES'S 2007 Whitmore's Landscaping Cross Cup, which featured Erwin Vervecken atop a podium, with Wicks, Trebon, Johnson and Powers beside him. More importantly, the race is on Long Island, so it was a decent drive for the "elite scrubs" of the world, and even more importantly, there were 14 DNFs out of 41 starters -- so the few scrubs that did show up got ruthlessly lapped and dropped out. Only 17 riders made the lead lap. Thus, it had the average fastest finish ever recorded outside Europe.

A big factor on this list is UCI races in a region that doesn't have a lot of UCI races -- thus your "normal Cat 2" doesn't own a UCI license, and doesn't drag down the field quality by getting himself into the elite race. A great example of the is race #2, Cincy3 Harbin Park -- only 30 racers, and a ton of speed at the front of the race. Meanwhile the local fast guys were down in the 2/3 field.

This applies to the Derby City Cup (only UCI race in the Louisville area) and USGP #8 (only UCI race in PDX), but it doesn't explain the Mercer Cup p/b Knapp's Cyclery, back in 2007 -- this race took place in a heavy UCI region (Mid Atlantic) and featured 47 finishers. Yet, it was CRAZY FAST. Last place? Danny Summerhill. 45th, Ethan Gilmour, 37th, Derrick St John, 31st, Nick Keough, etc etc. Myerson and McCormack both missed the top 20, the field was so fast!

I have no idea why this happened, though. Do you?

Fastest Women's Fields outside of Europe

Date	Race	Field	Number of Racers	Average Racer Points
12/11/2011	USGP of Cyclocross Round #8	Women Cat 1/2	35	353.92
9/26/2010	USGP Cyclocross-Planet Bike Cup	Women Pro/1/2	23	354.28
11/15/2009	USGP Mercer Cup Day 2	UCI Women Elite	27	354.66
11/4/2011	Cincy3 Cyclo-Stampede	UCI Elite Women	21	356.32
12/31/2011	Chicago Cross Cup New Year's Resolution Day 1	Women Pro/Cat 1/2	21	357.36

The locals-who-won't-buy-UCI-licenses effect is huge on the women's side, too -- four of these five women's race were the A race in a rare A/B/C women's categorization, with the B race being a 2/3 or even a 1/2/3 to let the local non-UCI racers go somewhere. Note that this doesn't happen in New England, because expect our cat 2 women to own UCI licenses, or stay home and blog angrily about the lack of a women's masters race.

The only race on that list without a true women's B field (although it did have women's Masters) was the 2009 USGP Mercer Cup Day 1. I had the misfortune of racing that race and I can tell you, it was a crappy, flat, demoralizing mudfest, and I'm gonna assume everyone doing poorly just plain dropped out, leaving only the best riders on the results sheet.

Holy cow, that took a long time to write up. Time for a(nother) beer! Coming up soon: Biggest Race Days, Smallest Race Days, Most Defeats.