Note: This post was told to us by Chris Mahan who raced the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships on a Specialized Tricross Singlecross. His first report was published yesterday. Chris designs for Novara.
Instead of a qualifier on Saturday, we made friends with Sunday’s combatants and rode a social ride. It seemed like it was all up hill on dirt roads, and it rained harder all the time. A few beers were drunk, as race prep for Sunday.
The race is all hush hush so you don’t get any details until you are there ready to start. A costume is pretty much a must. Best to select one you can ride in. I went with a dark angel with wings and a halo.
The start was insane to say the least. Half the racers on one side, half on the other, all the bikes piled in the middle. On go, it was Lemans style and out onto the muddy course. For the first lap it was just ride until some joker crashed in front of you and then get off and run until you can find a spot without too much mud to remount. If you got the tweets you knew to bring dollar bills to pay for the short cut. I missed that and had to ride the full route. The Thunder dome was epic. People hanging from the top, marshmallows were thrown, pure insanity.
I skipped the first beer hand up, trying to stay focused on racing. I couldn’t resist the bacon hand up. Mistake. My mouth felt like it was full of Crisco. The best part of the race, was when I passed Ryan Trebon on the second lap. He was busy trying to pull the pants of another racer. Not so sure he was fully committed to the race.
After the 3rd lap I felt like I had all the super muddy, off camber sections dialed and it was over as fast as it started. I looked at the lapboard and it said zero … the officials said they couldn’t see the numbers anymore so it was time to quit. All that was left were a couple of pints of Schooner Exact from the nice fellows at Raleigh and the podium presentation of the golden bikini’s.
Specialized Tricross Singlecross
The Specialized Tricross Singlecross … I was pleasantly surprised. I was skeptical of the brakes, tire choice and the crazy look of the fork, but the bike rode great. I climbed deep muddy sections past dudes with their expensive tubeless tires. Stuck the off camber sections as well as anyone with my limited skill set. The brakes didn’t clog up with mud. It rode, in a word, great.
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