Christine Majerus: "I have fun riding CX"

When the echoes of the road season begin to fade away, we fans have got the remedy not to fall into that pure abysm of no racing: that magic medicine is named cyclo-cross and we are fortunate that some of our favourite riders play in both disciplines. This is the case of Christine Majerus, the cyclist from Boels – Dolmans born in Luxemburg who, as she herself confesses, rides her CX bike out of fun. Probably this relaxed attitude was the clue to her remarkable performance at the Koppenbergcross two weeks ago, where she made her seasonal debut with nearly no preparation.

We wanted to know what do riders do in-between road and CX seasons, if they take time off the bike or perhaps they are simply too hooked to leave it totally aside… She answered these questions and many more about holidays, equality, doing vs thinking and beautiful Luxemburg.

First of all, many thanks for your time! How are you?

I am fine, thanks.

We are in full CX season and you made your debut on Saturday at Koppenbergcross. That 11^th position was quite good, wasn’t it?

Yes, I did my first race at Koppenbergcross. I had a break for a little bit over 3 weeks and started training just 1,5 weeks before that cross so I had no preparation at all and that’s also a little bit how it felt. I suffered a lot on the difficult circuit of Koppenberg, maybe it was not the best cross to start with because it is one of the most difficult one but with Specialized being partner of the race I couldn’t not start.

As we all know, this race is the first to give equal prize money to women and men riders. Tell us about it and if amongst the riders there was a sort of special atmosphere because of this achievement.

Well I can’t talk for the others but I felt pretty proud to be at the start of that historical race. Finally everyone was equal and that was what made it special. I felt a little bit like La Course this year. I am happy I had the privilege to be at the start of both of these races. By the way I also want to thank those people, riders, sponsors, who made these races possible and put a lot of energy in these projects. Now the most important thing is that these races keep going over the next few years and inspire other races to follow. What is the exception today should become the most normal thing tomorrow.

Indeed. Before going back to racing, I’d like you to tell us a bit about you. We know you are from Luxemburg, you ride for Boels – Dolmans, you are both a road and CX rider… what else?

I spent 5 years riding for a French team while doing my studies in France. Once I finished my Master I decided to join the Luxemburgish Army as a sportsoldier so that I could live from being a cyclist. Now I am a professional rider, soldier and graduated and pretty proud of all that.

Your road season ended at Worlds and then you had some time off before getting on the “muddy side”. From your facebook and twitter we saw you’ve been enjoying yourself around some wonderful scenery. How is this time off for you, is it totally off the bike? Do you practice other sports, gym or so? How do you refresh yourself mentally?

Yes, this year I decided to have a proper holiday at the end of the season to discover something new. During the season there is not so much space for holiday. I might have some time out from time to time during the season but it never allows you to go completely crazy with a holiday… At the end of the season I am totally off the bike. I think it is important to just forget about biking for a few weeks. I mean if you are working in a office you also don’t want to read your professional mails during your holiday. And finally after some days you feel that you are missing being on your bike so once you start training you are fully motivated again. But I am not the kind of person laying just on the beach during 3 weeks. I do a lot of hiking which is for me the best way to discover the place where I am on holiday. Before I entered the army I hated walking, now I like it.

That’s pretty cool. How did you start biking?

Pretty late actually compared to most of us. My brother was a bike rider but then stopped because of university, so I always saw bikes at home but I never really thought of racing myself. I did track& field but had too many injuries so I tried out duathlon and triathlon. I was strong on the bike but because of my injuries I couldn’t train properly the running part and my swimming was anyway a disaster. Out of fun I started at a luxemburgish national championship and because the national team was looking for riders to complete their team I straight got an invitation to race at Tour de l’Ardèche. Looking back it was not the easiest way to start cycling. The year after I was riding for GSD Gestion.

And for those who have not visited your country, how it it in terms of bike training?

I think it’s a great place to ride your bike. The best part is of course more to the north direction Ardennes. It’s pretty hilly over there with nice landscapes and most of all not too many cars. When I am in Luxembourg I train mostly around Luxembourg-city because that’s where I am from. Its less hillier and a bit more traffic.

I read somewhere that you did some track as well?

No, I was maybe 5 times on track before. We don’t have a track in Luxembourg. They plan to build one already for several years but it never happened. Now it even gets political so I guess we are not ready to get our track in Luxembourg. The national team has sometimes a track camp in Gent but I just went once until now. I don’t think I can make it this year because we have training camp with the team in Spain so that is by far more interesting for me.

Back to CX: this season we have the pleasure of seeing your teamie Sanne van Paassen back, and she is already fighting for podium positions! Does it help to have a mate of her level in a CX race?

When I heard she joined the team I was pretty happy. She was and probably will be again one of the best CX riders on the circuit so I hope I can learn from her. I am not a CX specialist. I am just a roadie who likes to ride other bikes then just road bikes. I have fun doing it so I take it as preparation for my road season.

What are your ambitions for this 2014/2015 season?

As I said before my main focus is on the road especially with the olympic qualification coming up. So I don’t want to over pace during the winter. I will try to do one or two good results during the World Cups during december and january, maybe trying to get at top10 result. But the most important thing is that I have fun and that riding CX is helping me at my preparation. I will not focus so much on the result at the end. If I get results its great if not it´s ok also. With the CX Worlds coming to Luxembourg in 2017, I will probably give it at try to do a ‘serious’ CX season in 2016-2017.

You are 27 and that seems a great age to still be growing as a rider, and particularly in your case as you arrived late to the sport. What things are yet to be improved in you?

For sure the goal is to keep improving things physically but also mentally. I am a little bit a never satisfied rider (unless we win) so I guess it’s normal I always try to understand why things went how they went, just to make it better next time. Maybe from time to time I just have to learn to think less and just do. That will be my motto for the beginning of the season.

And next year on the road, two great riders will join the team: Evie Stevens and Chantal Blaak. That makes the team even stronger and indicates a clear target: TTT. Were you , as a team, disappointed with your result at Ponferrada’s TTT (5^th place)?

Yes, of course these two top riders will make the team even stronger and TTT will be probably one of the teams target. Looking back this year there was just Ellen being a real TT specialist. Building a TTT team around her was a challenge and we had some great results in Energiewacht and Sweden that showed that it was possible if everyone was 100%. Ponferrada was of course disappointing for us but I am sure Boels – Dolmans will be fighting for podium and more next year!

Going back to Koppenbergcross and its symbolism, how do you see the present situation of women’s cycling? Both in road and CX, are you optimistic? What changes would you like to see happening?

The last few years where pretty important for women’s cycling. Right now we have a lot of new races, or a lot of things being promised or being done for the first time. All this is really great and people get excited about it but the most important thing now is that it will keep going for the next years. It shouldn’t be something that happened once and that´s it. Races like La course are great and they should be a role model but they also need to keep developing. Anyway you should never be satisfied with what you have because there is always a way to improve things. I would like to see more men races becoming also a women race. All those big one day races like Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix that would be awesome to have them on our calendar.

Hope those races will become true in the near future and we see you racing them!

Christine Majerus’ teams:

• GSD Gestion (2008-2012)
• Sengers Ladies Cycling Team (2013)
• Boels-Dolmans Cycling Team (2014-2015)