“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.” – Ron Swanson
We’ve decided to brush the dust off a classic Seattle event (in our minds), put a CX twist on it and whole-ass an event this Sunday. Is it a race? Is it a ride? Hell if we know. All I know is we put the idea together over a beer and it sounded awesome. So we waited a couple days, had some more beers while discussing it some more and it STILL sounded awesome. And then we went on a scouting ride, drank a few beers and put together a route that had us hurting but feeling pretty good that we had crammed as much shit into a sandwich as possible.
What do you need to know?
We’re going to start at the South East Corner of Genesee Park at 11 am Sunday, April 1st. Rolling out at 1130 after grabbing names, giving some instructions and collecting $10 to go on the ride. Why $10? Because we have expenses and shit! That’s why.
We recommend gears. Lots of them. But you be you and feel free to bring a SS, Fixed, unicycle (FPDX) and heckle the shit out of us for putting on a non-SS friendly event. (Put on your own event and you can make the rules.)
We also recommend larger than 25c tires. Please refer to the above but substitute tire sizes for bikes.
We’ll be ending at the Slowboat where we might have prizes. We’ll probably have Hodala Merch for sell. We’re trying to get a beer special. We’ll definitely be watching Flanders.
I can hear you now…’this is pretty last minute and seems like a pretty shoddy event’. And I’ll remind you that this is a Hodala event and we “Never half-ass two things. We whole-ass one thing.”
Here are the words we put together about the Woodland Park race. You can read about it here or take a look at All Hail The Black Market or CX Magazine for their personally edited versions :
It’s been randomly known in some circles that Hodala is a team that was built without giving a shift. Part of this is due to the nature of the Single Speeder and the culture that has helped cultivate this mentality. The other part can be attributed to the amazing people who repeatedly host events and tolerate us year after year. Case in Point, the fine people at MFG Cyclocross here in Seattle who have often turned a blind eye, or merely crossed their arms and shook their head back and forth like a disappointed parent when our “soup kitchen” of a trailer shows up.
With no intent on traveling to #sscxwc in Italy (you’re welcome EU) we turned our full attention to the crown jewel of Seattle CX….Woodland Park. In years past we’ve hosted luau’s, beach parties, a disco, 80’s metal fest and have often created a winter wonderland at what has been dubbed “Hodala Corner”. This year’s plan was a little more ambitious…make a ‘long cut’ with a giant slip-n-slide and a foam pit. We figured it would take 30+ pallets, some plywood, a big roll of visqueen, over a dozen bottles of dish soap, 3 kegs of tasty beer and a leaf blower. No problem. Right?
Disclaimer, this is not legal in most forms of racing and I’m sure would be punishable at an OBRA race with a DQ and forfeiture of all Rapha apparel. We did not alter the course in any way (we merely created an ‘option’) and we got permission from MFG in the form of a subtle ‘don’t make a mess’ response.
To be totally honest we had NO idea about what everyone would think of it and were hopeful that people would partake in the little bit of fun we were trying to create. By the end of the day we were beyond stoked with the number of people who ‘opted in’ for the shenanigans and completely blown away when the leaders of the Pro ½’s race (Steve Fisher, Spencer Paxson, Russell Stevenson and Kaler Marshall with the overall series title on the line) came to an accord and giggled their way down the ‘illegal’ course option covered in Hodala foam. Like finding the true meaning of Christmas, I guess it really is possible to race a bike and have some fun.
I’m sure there are some people out there who will find some kind of fault in what we did and maybe claim that these kinds of antics are ruining cross. To which my only reply is to crack a beer and salute them in their pursuit of outstanding results in their athletic endeavors. Meanwhile, we’ll just place another 6-pack in the pit area and continue to spread our own kinda racing around.
That’s a wrap on the 2017 CX Season. Time to put the Hobago back into storage and start planning shit for CX Nationals that will be in our backyard in 2 years.
In fact…in all my years of Star Wars Fanboy-dom don’t I ever recall even seeing a Bothan.
Just in time for the release of Rogue One, a fat batch of Rainier2D2 Coozies have landed in our store.
We have both sizes. 12 AND 16oz
Lovingly hand made by the legendary Corndog of Dank Bags, these coozies are as unique and elusive as the man who made them. A man so shrouded in mystery he is found only on social media under the tag #corndogdoingthings and talked about in loud bars as a Coozie craftsman with no equal in the lesser Seattle area.
Order one now, grab a bunch of your favorite yellow beer, drink every time someone says “Rebel” or Rebellion” and toast them on their successful mission to steal the plans for the DeathStar. (if that’s a spoiler, you have no business being our friend)
The last couple of weekends have been a whirlwind of activity for the Hodala crew. A couple of weekends ago, a bunch of us split up into three teams for GoMeansGo’s Nine to Five scavenger hunt.
It all started out with a double rainbow
Seriously. Double fucking rainbow.
and then there was a bunch of scavenger hunting before this happened:
and then there were some bars and more scavengering and then 6 am breakfast greyhounds at the 5 Point.
Everything else is sort of a blur of frantically collecting a ton of random objects that I still need to clean out of my messenger bag. Greg has a nice wrap-up of the event over at GoMeansGo. It looks like Randy & Joe took 5th, Marcy’s team was maybe 10th 4th, and Nate and I ended up something like 18th. I’m assuming that Joe got 100 extra points or so for that photo above.
For people who are awake around 5 am everyday it was surprisingly easy to stay up all night as long as we kept moving and we only really ran out of steam when we sat down in bars for awhile. The vintage 4Loko that we drank around 2:30am probably helped a bit. I’m hoping that we’ll get more of the team out for this event next year. Ryan and Greg at GoMeansGo put on a really great race.
This past weekend was, of course, Wizard Staffs Across the Universe.
The day started out being shitty and rainy, but if we let the weather stop us from getting drunk then the terrorists have truly won. Fortunately, RaleighUSA fully supports all of Hodala’s activities and we had some tents to keep us dry.
Meanwhile in the Dirty South (Tacoma), Myers apparently thought it was a good idea to add an element of danger into Wizard Staffing – welding.
Those Churchkey’s might kinda taste like crap, but you can’t argue with a steel can.
Up in Seattle we kept drinking
and drinking
until we all decided to take our hard-earned wizard status on a walkabout to the nearby PRIDE celebration where some Canadians in tutus did body shots off of F-Joe
and DR managed to take his underwear off in the middle of the bar for them without getting 86’ed. It was truly a miracle of drunken assholery.
There’ll be a video and more photos up as soon as Sally can get though the nearly 10 hours of video that we shot on Saturday.
We did manage to add a new wrinkle to the fine art of Wizard Staffing – the “lips on staff tip.” Basically, you can tip another drinkers staff up with your own wizard staff and they’ve gotta keep drinking for as long as you do, but you must have your lips on your staff in order to force someone else to keep drinking. So here are the current Hodala rules for Wizard Staff day:
1. You aren’t a wizard until your staff is as tall as you are (I’m 15 beers tall).
2. You must have your lips on your wizard staff in order to force a person to keep drinking when tipping their staff.
3. You need a lot more duct tape than you think you do. Go buy some more.
After a day of letting our livers rest a few of us went to scout a new ‘cross club course and alter a few of the ones from last year. We’ve got the courses mostly set and the beer sponsorships nailed down, so dust off your ‘cross bikes; the 2012 Cross Club season kicks off a week from today. If you aren’t currently on the list and want to do some less-than-legal ‘cross racing in public parks every Tuesday night, sign up for the email updates.
That’s all for now. Keep an eye out for the WSAtU video and we’ll see you next Tuesday.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Ides of March this weekend. I can honestly say that all of you who stayed home because of the snow missed out. As I was cursing to myself and praying to… i guess myself… while I was finalizing the course that morning I thought that none of you fools would ever leave your house to race 25 miles around town and climb what easily ended up bring 300+ stairs.
I've never wanted to murder someone at 10 am as much as when I took this photo. But whom?
You’re all winners. Doubly so considering that 70% of the field cut the course and the actual “winner” is still sorta up for debate. Bart came into the finish first, but skipped the most fun part of the course coming down Cheasty after taking some bad routing advice from Dirty Randy. Joe was the first in to have ridden all – or most of – the course, but he’s pretty shifty and there’s just no way we could let him win. All he got was some public shaming and a t-shirt with his face on it.
The text reads "I got fucked by Joe Hamilton and all I got was this t-shirt." Ladies - we printed a few extra that'll be sitting by F-Joe's bed. Available while supplies last so you'd better hurry
Then came along our perpetual winners – Brian and Craig. Congrats to them.
For the suckers who missed out this weekend, the green arrows and shamrocks will most likely still be around for a few weeks. Start at the stairs at the bottom of Holgate and follow them from there. Here’s a map. The only instructions you’ll really need are:
1. If you can see a trail beside the road, you’re probably supposed to be on it.
2. When you get to the outdoor fireplace/chimney, go back down the stairs.
3. When in doubt, climb up the road instead of coasting down it
USA Cycling Rule 1A33 – The cyclo-cross season begins September 1st of one year and ends on the last day of February of the following year.
…we tend to enjoy getting rad all year round. This past weekend was the second race in the Frost Club series – a special couples-themed Valentine’s relay/madison-style cross race for all of you lovers out there.
The HeartBraker began with a 3-legged Le Mans start…
Sally and I are embarrassingly good at the 3-legged race.
Now that I look at the photo, does anyone else see that Myers and F-Joe aren’t connected while they’re stepping over that barrier? I feel like this should be added to CXMagazine’s Readers Choice awards for “biggest controversy” after Rapha not getting tattoos at SSCXWC and SF basically keeping the race instead of sending it to Philly (No, we’re not over either of those things.)
… Where were we? … Oh, 3-legged Le Mans. Partners grabbed their bike and had to trade off 3 minute-ish hot laps around a surprisingly hard course and pass off the bike that they were sharing.
Half of the reason we decided on this format was to see whose bike Tyler and Trista would ride. They chose hers:
All of you need to buy some more Nuun so that they can replace that Kona with a shiny new Raleigh.
After 12 laps, each rider on the top 3 teams had to slam a beer before their final laps.
Nat doing what he does best.
Myers and F-Joe ended up running away with the race, which is a little less surprising now that there’s evidence that they were cheating from the start line.
That flower is like the scarlet letter of cheating at fake cyclocross races.
Fortunately, there’s another race coming up for the rest of us to try and steal their glory. The Ides of March will be a ‘cross alleycat on March 17th. Show up to Schooner Exact around noon. There’ll be more info coming soon so keep an eye out here or over at Red Lantern Races.
Bring some money with you as well because you’re going to want one of the new Frost Club shirts.
I promise that you'll look this good wearing it.
All of the proceeds from these races and the t-shirts goes to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society so just buy one already. If you want one and can’t make it out to the race just email me and we’ll figure it out – hodalacx [at] gmail [dot] com .
After drinking beer and riding bikes, it certainly seems like our favorite thing to do is make videos of ourselves drinking beer and riding bikes. Fortunately, it seems like Cleveland has had some extra time on his hands recently and made these for your enjoyment.
