World cyclocross championships preview with Aaron Schooler

Four days before the elite men’s world cyclocross championship race, Aaron Schooler spoke with Canadian Cycling Magazine from his home in Tübingen, Germany. The Edmonton native planned to drive to Tabor, Czech Republic the following day, which he figured would take him roughly six hours. It will be Schooler’s first time racing at Tabor, a World Cup venue and host of the worlds in 2010 where Zdeněk Štybar won the elite men’s race. Schooler brushed up on his knowledge of the course through video. “What I like doing, especially for races that have been World Cups before and that I haven’t been to is preview and re-watch old races to see what the course is like and what it could be like in different conditions,” he said.

This season, Schooler has been racing for Focus CX. His home base in southern Germany puts him close to the races in Belgium and The Netherlands via a short plane ride. He’s also been racing events in the Deutschland Cup and UCI races in Switzerland. The team has provided him with a lot of support. The one thing he had to get used to: canti brakes. “It’s the first year I’m back on cantilever brakes,” he said. “One of the sponsors is Lightweight and they don’t make disc-brake wheels yet. But it’s been a pretty flawless transition just getting used to cantilevers again.”

At Tabor, Canadian national champion Mike Garrigan and Mark McConnell will join Schooler in the elite men’s field. Mical Dyck, who was ninth at nationals and the 2012 national champion, will compete in the elite women’s race. Canada’s under-23 men’s champ, Danick Vandale of Winnipeg, be there as well. The largest contingent of Canadians will be the junior men. The first- (Oliver Evans), second- (Quinton Disera), third- (Willem Boersma), fourth- (Liam Mulcahy) and fifth-place (Stefan Ritter) riders from the most recent nationals will all be in the Czech Republic. “It’s cool to see so many young guys, so many keen guys coming through the ranks,” Schooler said. “Willem has been over here before so he has a little bit of experience. But for the rest of the guys, this is their first taste of international racing for a lot of them. It’s quite a big jump for them to come over here. But Quinton and some of the others are actually doing quite well so far at Hoogerheide. It’s cool to see them make that jump. Provincially or nationally, they can do quite well but coming over here…instead of racing for the podium, they, on a good day, are racing for top 30 or top 20.”

After the cyclocross season wraps up, Schooler is going take a break from racing. Most likely, that break will feature cross-country skiing in the nearby Black Forest with his wife, Emily. He plans on doing some road racing this summer, likely criteriums with his team. He also has a mountain bike team project in the works. It’s called I Will Cycling. “I Will” is a helmet-wearing advocacy project that Schooler is behind. It was inspired by his younger brother who died from head injuries in a skiing accident in which he wasn’t wearing a helmet. While the project is still in its early stages, Schooler envisions a scenario that sees any race winnings garnered by the team put into the advocacy work, such as helmet giveaways for kids.