August 2012 – Hodala

August 29, 2012September 6, 2012

SSCXWC 2012

It seems that we’ve got an increasing number of folks showing up to this site on a daily basis via google searches for SSCXWC 2012 or Single Speed Cyclocross World Championship because of a post I wrote last fall after the Hodala crew had just returned from San Francisco.

Well, as all of you have probably noticed, there’s no new content which isn’t all that strange because no one has any info on SSCXWC 2012. At all. At this point we’re all just assuming that it’ll happen sometime before January 1st in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, CA.

There’s a blog that hasn’t been updated since early April. (Weirdly enough they never approve any comments to the one post that is up.)

There’s a slightly cryptic listing on the Northern California Nevada Cycling Association calendar for December 1 and December 2 with Murphy Mack listed as the promoter and no other information.

And that’s it.

So what are we to do? Here in the NW, ‘cross season starts this upcoming weekend and every promoter has had their calendar online since June. If we’re going to keep SSCXWC going long enough to take it to the east coast – not to mention give the promoters in CA an incredible amount of money – we’ve gotta book flights and hotels/houses, make plans, disappoint family members that we’ll (once again) be going to race and get drunk with our friends instead of making the trek home for the holidays. I mean, what the fuck? This race is a national event that traditionally takes place between the beginning of October and the end of November, right? Aren’t we kind of cutting it close here? Am I being impatient? Seattle announced the date for SSCXWC 2010 in fucking April.

So what do we do? I guess nothing. They’ll announce the date super fucking late and we’ll all spend much more money on flights and hotels that we would’ve if Santa Cruz had their shit together and we’ll go and have a good time and drink beers and celebrate our weird little corner of the cycling world in spite of the fact that the promoters maybe sorta kinda selfishly kept the event for themselves instead of letting Philly take it at the SSCXWC 2011 afterparty when no one from Santa Cruz even showed up to claim the event. But I’m not bitter about it.

Fuck it. We’ll probably see you all at some as yet to be determined date in California. If not… Philly 2013.

August 22, 2012

‘Cross Club – Genessee Park #2

Like the scoring sheet up above, last night’s ‘cross club was a fucking mess. 34 of you wonderful people ended up showing up for probably one of the longest races we’ve ever done. I believe the the final 3 ended up racing for close to 40 minutes.

Because there were so many of you and we didn’t really have time to run an A and B group, we temporarily suspended Miss ‘N Out ‘cross conditions in favor of the pull-out method, which, I’m told, works every time. I mean, ‘cross season starts in 2 weeks, you should all be able to ride your bikes for over a half hour by now. So everyone raced for as long as they felt like up until 5 laps, when we pulled the field down to our top 4 for the beer lap. Before that not a whole lot happened – some dude in a Rabobank skinsuit crashed out, Evil Jim’s shoulder is still busted as fuck and it is hard to watch him try to race one handed while holding it, Max from 333fab showed up just in time to start the first lap, and a few people had flats before the race even started. Onto the beer lap!

Craig came into the line first wielding a church key and insisted that he be allowed to start his beer before everyone else showed up, then sprayed his Rainier over everyone within 2 meters of him when trying to open it. Brian and Josh came in next and were forced to drink tall boys, but after finishing his Myers left the line with no hands on the bars and “sorrysorrysorried” his way across the field, skipping 1/4 of the course and riding up onto Craig’s wheel. Josh, seemingly took the more honest route, but an hour later it was revealed that he unabashedly cut the course on nearly every lap and didn’t even “sorrysorrysorry” to try and make up for it. In light of all of this reckless trickery, John really should have won it but instead rode his bike for about 50 meters, grabbed an armful of stakes and returned back to the finish line to drink his beer in peace. I mean… Andy even fulfilled his duties as “surrogate Kitten” and drank half of his beer lap beer for him. For shame, John. For shame.

Afterwards, Myers decrees a 4 way tie for first this week for Craig, John, Josh, and himself.

Fin.

Next week is our final race of the ‘cross club season followed by the traditional after party. As usual, there will be drinks and a few prizes. Also per usual, we’ve gotten our shit together on the last possible day and made up some ‘cross club shirts. We’ll have ’em at the race and party and they’ll be either $15 or $20 bucks. I’ve also got some of the patches left if you’ve got a denim vest that is dying for some fresh embroidery.

See you next week. You won’t want to miss out on this course.

August 21, 2012August 21, 2012

#RGR #Donkelope

rgr_in_color — While re-colorizing this photo the background turned all pink. Not sure what happened here – must be some Rapha setting that I couldn’t work around.

Did you guys hear that the Donkelope team went down to the Rapha Gentlemen’s Race this past weekend and crushed it? They did! It sounds like the River City Cycles team finished with the best time (slow clap for them), but Donkelope finished first and won a mountain of beer. I’m assuming that Rapha will have a video and post up in a few days, but I’ve attached some of Jose’s photos to whet your whistle. Congratulations, guys. Are you bringing all of that beer to ‘cross club tonight?

7817704298_6863191923_h — Craig kissing hands and shaking babies on his way up a climb.

I hope to see you all at the penultimate ‘cross club of the season tonight. I’ve still got a few patches and coozies if anyone missed out.

August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

Shameless pandering (more ‘cross club bullshit)

Right here at the top of the post I’d like to give a “shout out” to the only company that wants anything to do with us – Rainier Beer. We’d all be thirsty except for the cases and cases of beer they kick down to us for ‘Cross Club every year, so let’s take a quick moment to enjoy some of my personal favorite Rainier beer ads.

1263495680_145_FT8919_rainier_beer_ad_01_thumbnail — You can’t go wrong with Our Lady Rainier.

120824509246-4ee6f8a5b6ebf — The late ’80s were a pretty wacky time, amiright?

rainier_atilla — I can very nearly guarantee that no one has ever like Rainier ale. Sorry, guys.

Honorable mention goes to Barzan, which I would’ve included in this post but an extensive search (3 minutes on google) didn’t produce a decent image of it. Ah, well.

Everybody’s thirsty now? Go out and buy a 6-pack of tall boys to get you through the rest of this post. I’ll wait.

…

Alrighty then. Did you hear that Craig is officially King of the fucking World (Two time Cycle Messenger World Champion)?

Is it too late to get him a Hodala kit with World Champion stripes? Can we all be world champions by proxy a la The World Champion Hodala Bicycle Racing Team? I kinda like the sound of that. Anyway, congratulations to Craig for being fast as shit and the nicest dude that any of you have ever met. I’ll try to get him to write up a little something about the race, but we’ll see how that goes.

Enough of that. Back to ‘Cross Club nonsense.

Here are the results from the past few weeks: