Why I love this crazy sport

I love this photo that Todd Butcher took. It paints what I love about cyclocross. I've just powered through a mud pit and am (relatively speaking) speeding toward a staircase runup. There were a lot of people at the mud pit and the runup cheering, and both were really hard and required bike handing skills to navigate efficiently and quickly. There's mud on me and the bike, the scenic venue is in the background, there's pain and yet FUN written on my face. This, for me, is what cyclocross is all about.