Little Belgium, Andy Frothingham’s documentary on the 2007 New England cyclocross season, is now available for free viewing (all 40 minutes of it) on Vimeo. Check it out, and then visit his Little Belgium Movie site to make a donation or buy a copy on DVD.

I recently came across these two well-produced compilation videos posted on YouTube by the unfortunately-named “FacePubes.” They have some great footage from 2007-08 European Cyclocross races (mostly taken from Sporza TV), and include a lot of mud, some hairy crashes, and of course a whole bunch of Sven Nys.

Last season I rode in a couple of the Verge Dert Derby Tuesday-night cyclocross races here in Austin. You’ll notice that I said “rode” and not “raced,” because my participation probably didn’t rise to the level of what could honestly be called “racing.” I did have a great time, however, and am looking forward to the 2008 series. The races are well organized and reasonably priced, and racing at night under the lights is a pretty cool experience.

I have been meaning to post the Dirt Derby promo video for a while now, but hadn’t gotten around to it, and then Andrew at Pirate Race Productions sent me a link to this new 2008 promo clip, which does an even better job than last year’s video of capturing what the Dirt Derby is all about.

Racing starts again in September, and Andrew says that there are some other exciting cross-related things in the works, so keep an eye on their site.

I finally got around to watching my recording of this year’s Paris-Roubaix. PR is always an incredibly exciting race, with its storied history and agonizingly difficult terrain, and this year was no exception. Sure, the much-predicted rain didn’t come through, Tom Boonen shocked almost no one by winning again, and George Hincapie’s equipment failed less spectacularly than usual, but it was still great.

And of course I was struck again by how much more this race has in common with a cyclocross race than a typical Pro Tour road race. There aren’t any hills to speak of, much less run-ups, and the distance is about 10 times greater than most people cover in a one-hour cross race, but the road surfaces on some of Paris-Roubaix’s pave sections make a lot of cross courses look like a velodrome.

I wanted to post a video of this year’s race that captures how demanding this race is, but there’s not a lot out there that does it justice. The video that actually does the best job may be this one, which captures some of the teams doing pre-race reconnaissance on the notorious Trench of Arenberg pave section.

Note: This video starts off with some still images, which I’m not a big fan of on YouTube (it’s a site for videos, people), but it switches to video after a few seconds, so stick with it.

I recently saw this post on what is definitely one of my favorite cycling blogs, Belgium Knee Warmers. It’s about a new documentary on Connecticut frame builder Richard Sachs called Imperfection is Perfection. The post got me to reading a little more about Sachs, which led me eventually to the blog for the Richard Sachs Cyclocross Team.

That’s where I found today’s video. It’s sort of a home-movie recap of the team’s experience at the 2007 U.S. National Championships in Kansas City. It’s got some inside jokes that are probably most enjoyable if you’re actually on the inside, but it is still fun even if you aren’t, and it’s got some great footage of the frozen ruts and snow that were the hallmark of that event, including a pileup in a ditch at the start of one of the races.

With the cyclocross season now over, I thought I might spend some time in the spring and summer months rooting around the Internet for some good instructional videos.

First up is bike cleaning. There are actually quite a few videos out there purporting to be about this subject, but most most have their usefulness limited by being poorly produced (turn some lights on please), of dubious educational value (do we really need a three-minute video of someone spraying off their commuter bike with a garden hose?), or too intent on pimping one particular product or brand (I’m talking about you CyberFoxy).

I finally did find this one, which details a pretty thorough cleaning and lubing regimen. It does prominently feature WeldTite cleaners and lubes, but the same techniques could be used with other products.

And if you want to be inspired to do a really thorough, loving cleaning job, check out this clip from the beginning of A Sunday in Hell, a documentary about the 1976 Paris-Roubaix spring classic.

This is a nice little compilation from an older world championship race (1997?), focusing on run-ups and barriers. It’s a nice opportunity to observe a variety of PRO mount, dismount, and shouldering techniques.

While trolling the video sites for interesting cyclocross clips, I’ll occasionally come across something pretty good that I may have missed in previous searches. The An Hour in Hell documentary is a good example of this.

The “Cyclocross Crash Bloopers” video, however, is almost impossible to miss if you are search the word “Cyclocross” on YouTube, since it is typically the first or second item in the results. And its popularity is undeniable. In addition to maintaining a four-and-a-half-star rating, it has been viewed nearly 70,000 times. The next-most-viewed cyclocross video is the excellent trailer for Pure Sweet Hell, with less than 37,000 views.

Even if you extend the definition of “cyclocross” to include Lance Armstrong’s unintentional ride across across a field after dodging the crashing Joseba Beloki in the 2003 Tour, today’s video still wins the popularity contest, because “Lance Armstrong’s Incredible Shortcut 2003″ has only managed 32,000 views.

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 OK kids. It’s finally here. The full Sporza TV telecast of the Elite Men’s race at the 2008 Cyclocross World Championships in Treviso, Italy on January 27, 2008. Knock yourselves out.

A pretty sweet little video from DH Productions of Tim Johnson’s win in the Elite Men’s race at the 2007 U.S. National Cyclocross Championships in Kansas City.