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Have you received the 2017 edition of Factis magazine? You may recall reading an interview with Year 12 student Adam Blazevic, who was named Australian Male Junior CX Rider of the Year. Enjoy the full interview with Adam below.

While most of us spent January enjoying the warmer weather, Year 12 student Adam Blazevic navigated snow and ice while competing against the best junior cyclocross (CX) riders in the world for the CX European season. With two impressive wins for the season, Adam was named Australian Male Junior CX Rider of the Year. We sat down with Adam to learn about cyclocross.

Firstly, what is cyclocross?

Cyclocross is an hour of hard, intense racing. Its short laps of about seven to eight minutes, and there are a lot of technical features, like running up stairs or over barriers, steep drops and steep climbs. It’s a winter sport – so there is mud and snow. It is huge in Belgium and Europe and is now growing in America and Australia. They are actually trying to get it into the Winter Olympics.

Being a winter sport the conditions can include ice and snow. How do you train for these conditions?

A couple of times we’ve ridden in the snow at Donna Buang, but other than that not really. I normally ride in the Dandenongs, which is wet and slippery in winter, so I’m quite comfortable in those conditions.

How did you get into cyclocross?

My dad got me into mountainbiking when I was about nine. I’ve always liked riding, and been on a bike since I was really young. And then at nine I started getting really into it and racing, and I’ve been doing it ever since then. I have been racing cyclocross since 2011 in conjunction with mountainbiking. The mountainbike national series is run in summer whilst cyclocross is run in winter.

When competing do you have a lot of gear you need to take with you?

During races I have a mechanic and you can have two bikes, so when one gets really muddy and everything gets jammed and clogged up, you can swap bikes and someone cleans your bike and then you can swap again.

When you go overseas to race, how do you take your bikes with you?

I have specific bags for the bikes, so I take the wheels off, strip them down and then pack them in. I take tools with me to put the bikes back together and fix them if I need too.

What is your training routine and does it change in the lead up to a race?

It does change and I go through different phases of training. Like I might go through a building phase, where you’re building volume on the bike. Then there’s the gym phrase where I’ll do strength and conditioning. At the moment I am doing specific sessions because I’ve got a couple of races coming up, so the work I am doing is tailored to the races I am going to be competing in.

You are in Year 12, how do you juggle training, racing and school work? How does the School assist you?

I was able to do a Year 12 subject last year, so with four subjects this year I have quite a few spares. I have to maximise my time, I can’t be wasting it. After school I go home and either ride or do an hour of homework and then ride. Sometimes I’ll get up and train before school so I’ve got time after school to get all my homework done. When I go away it’s even harder as I’ve got to take my school work with me and I’m racing. But I have been managing to do it.

Are there any riders you look up to in cyclocross?

Some of the riders include Mathieu Van Der Poel, Wout Van Aert, Nino Schurter and Peter Sagan. I look at what they do and I’m like it would be really cool to be able to do that one day. It motivates me to aspire to do something like that in the future.

What cyclocross achievements you are most proud of?

One of them would be getting two wins over in Belgium. That was pretty big, because it’s not often that Australians go over there and actually mix it up with the Europeans. Another one was racing World Champs, it’s a pretty big event – there was like 50,000 to 60,000 people there, it’s professional. Maybe also winning the 2016 U19 Cyclocross National Championships in Adelaide last year.

What is your next goal in cyclocross?

So this year I am looking to race in the Cyclocross National Championships in August and then a few races later in the year, like the Tour of Bright in December. I am looking at going back overseas at the end of the year to race cyclocross in Europe again.

If someone wanted to get into cyclocross, what should they do?

Get a bike, go out and have fun. Ride around and work on your skills, then maybe try a race, if you like it keep going and develop your riding from there.