Cross is here! If you’re a fan, you know the off-season discipline has plenty going for it. There’s mud, often questionable weather, riders shouldering bikes, barriers…crashes, mud, and spectators making enough noise to wake up the neighbours. If you’ve ever been to a race or watched it on FloBikes, you know there’s cowbells.

So. Much. Cowbell.

Enter Dusty Coyote, a four-piece garage rock band from the Gananoque and Kingston area. The quartet might have stumbled across the perfect soundtrack for Canada’s favourite excuse to get muddy.

So they have a song “More Cowbell” that wasn’t written specifically for cyclocross. Of course, one can always think of that classic Saturday Night Live skit with Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken when you hear that phrase. “I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!”

But there’s also a ‘cross race in his hometown of St. Catharines called We Need More Cowbell that happened in late September. Beofre it happened, Eric Leppof Dusty Coyote didn’t take long to figure out there was indeed a connection.

Dusty Coyote

“Well, this song might have accidentally found its perfect sport,” Lepp wrote to Canadian Cycling Magazine.

Fair enough.

Dusty Coyote is a scrappy mix of garage rock, surf and funk punk, with Eric on vocals and guitar, Evan Massey on bass, Mathew Heidt on drums and Nic Lennox on baritone sax. The band’s More Cowbell EP was recorded live, with the four musicians playing together rather than relying on a click track or autotune.

“We just like the energy of a band actually playing in a room,” Eric said.

That’s a decent fit for cyclocross, isn’t it? A gritty sport that tends to reward a little chaos over perfectly polished proceedings.

The band isn’t made up of bike racers, either. Eric says none of the dudes in the band compete. But they love the enthusiasm at ‘cross races. (Particularly the cowbells.)

But the connection goes further. Lepp said former Canadian cross and road rider Nathan Chown had mentioned using it in a recap reel. Plus, the organizers of Prologue Cross in Uxbridge were planning to play it at their Oct. 18 event.

The 2026 ‘cross nats are coming up soon

But there’s also a big race coming up at the end of the month that the song would be great to play at full blast. The 2026 Canadian cyclocross championships are taking place in Holmgren Country. They run from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 at Hardwood Ski and Bike in Oro-Medonte, Ont.

The weekend brings Canada’s best riders together to fight for the maple leaf jersey. Canadian Cycling Magazine will be on scene too, for reports and photos. But if you can make it, try! Watching ‘cross is always fun, and Hardwood is a great venue.

The racing will be the main attraction, naturally. But if you’re heading up there, there’s no reason your playlist can’t get involved, too.

Give Dusty Coyote’s “More Cowbell” a listen on Spotify, and find the band on Instagram.

Because if there’s one thing cyclocross doesn’t need less of, it’s cowbell.