pdxcross

Since when did cyclocross get so hot? I mean, there was more dust and sweat than mud and rain. This felt like a mid-July mountain bike race, which is okay until you remember that your cyclocross bike doesn’t have any water bottle holders.

But we smelled good.

In true cyclocross form, riders and spectators – we remind ourselves that the riders are usually spectators and the spectators are usually riders –- came out in full form, slathered in sunblock, and ran themselves silly on a course that included a set of stairs built for giants. Each step felt like a leap over a fence.

For the first time this season, some of the pdxcross elves raced. As we predicted, we rode unremarkably, landing just about in the middle of our respective classes. Since we’re riding as Beginners and as Slow Old Men, we’re unlikely to land lucrative contracts with big-name European sponsors (this month). I guess we’ll keep making pictures in a kind of serious way and take the riding as a strangely painful pastime. Huh.

My favorite quote from the day came just as my Master C group was about to take off. One guy looked at me and said: “You know what I like about this group? I like that tomorrow morning, we’re all going to a job. So we can’t crash and burn, can we?” There was some crashing, but no burning in the Master C. In the Master B race, some poor guy left some teeth on the trail, just after draining his body of oxygen on the Steps-for-Giants runup. Ouch. That would be a crash and a burn, I guess.

My favorite exchange for the day happened about lap four during the Master C race:
Slow Old Man #1: “Geez, man, I have a sore back that’s slowing me down.”
Slow Old Man #2: “I’ve got news for you, pal. We’re so old we’ve ALL got sore backs. Just ride and shut up, will ya?”

-torsten

Saturday I headed down south to the Rickreall Rampage.

Just after the start of one of the races, that homemade bridge had a line of folks waiting to cross it I wish I could have seen from the air. A bridge, over a ditch, in the middle of a flat field…with dozens of people holding bicycles in their hands waiting for a chance to run over it.

I was not in the air and was too far away to make a picture. But, enough about the photograph you don’t see.

I’m just glad it wasn’t raining. The bridge might have melted, derailleurs would have been snapping off in the wheat stubble and the those bumpy roads around the filbert grove would have been gumbo. It was instead a beautiful day down on the farm in Rickreall.

Late in the afternoon, I was drawn into the woods by the hoots and hollers of some fans. I found a fellow from Team Wreck and a few others pleading with riders to take the high road, the road less traveled, onto a little single track bridge over a log instead of going around it (I believe that the bridge was officially named the Make Out Ladder). Not many took the alternative route, but one guy who did passed the rider immediately in front of him. And the woods erupted with howls and cheers.

-tim

We’re gonna try to soak up as much cyclocross as we can this weekend. Between the Rickreall Rampage and the Battle at Barlow it should make for good times. This is a particularly good line from the Rickreall PDF, “There will likely be a bonfire and shenanigans, so be prepared to grin excessively.” We’ll try to be there for as many races as we can on Saturday. I mean come on, “shenanigans,” that’s awesome. On Sunday our group of fun-loving but not too speedy riders will join the racing ranks, knock out a few laps and try to take some photographs. Should be a great weekend. See you there.

We double-teamed the Double Cross races this weekend. Tim singled-handedly rode and photographed on Saturday, for which we owe him a tasty beverage. On Sunday, a few of us piled into our official sexy mini van and left Portland in a mist, arriving at Hood River Valley High School just as the sun tried to poke through the clouds.

We’re photographers focused on seeing, but I couldn’t help but notice all the sounds of the day.  A man flipped a dog over his shoulder and sprinted hard up a run-up, which the small crowd greeted with cheers. A man named John raced the Master ‘C’ class, then put on a cardboard cowboy hat with rabbit ears (if someone can explain that to us, please do!) and played his fiddle for the later races, accompanied by dogs barking, cow bells ringing, and humans yelling. A voice screamed out to the last few riders in one race: “You’ve got ‘em just where you want ‘em. Now just pass ‘em all at once!” At a deserted corner of the course without spectators, a lone Master ‘A’ rider filled the silence, talking to himself loudly as he slide through the thick dust in a tricky corner: “Ride, ride, RIDE! Go, now go. Fast!”

click for a wee little sample of these sounds

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On our way back to the rain forest, we drove through some real downpours, reminding us that dust will soon step aside to make room for mud.

Hi all, thanks for the very kind welcome over the last few days.

This weekend we’re heading to Hood River for Double Cross. If haven’t heard, there are some changes in the venue due to the forest fire. No worries though, all racing is still on.

We’ll be there some of Saturday and some of Sunday. Hope to see you there.