SS Cross World Champs
Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 8:49 am
Where are the race reports? Or was Roland just too traumatized by the poster showing a unicorn cut in half to even participate?
Friday:
We headed down to Seattle to stay with our friend Polly for the weekend. We got there at 7pm, and figured we would go for dinner, then cupcakes & coffee, then head downtown to the bar where the race package pickup was taking place. We go to the bar at 10:30 expecting the party to be in full swing, but they had just packed up for the night, telling us to get our packages the next morning instead. Hmm... shutting down at 10:30? Well, ok, it is the night before the Qualifier.
Saturday:
We arrived at the Brewery that was hosting the Qualifier about 1 hour before our start times. Most people looked very serious about this race. It was a "CrossCat" (alleycat on 'cross terrain), where they started us in groups of 10, 4 mins apart. The start consisted of a 50m sprint to the road, then a dash across 5 lanes of minimal traffic, then wound through Seattle on "hobo trails", parks, a bit of singletrack, a lot of bike paths, and some streets & freeway exit ramps.
(picking a different gear before the Qualifier)
(Roland's start)
There were 4 womens groups - 1 was in the first one, Joele was in the second, Tanya was in the third, and Wendy was in the 4th. Mine appeared to be most cutthroat, as most of the girls charged through the first red light without even looking and were never seen again. I hung with the rest of my group for a while, but was undergeared on the flats, and overgeared on the freeway ramp. Joele's group caught up to me on the BRUTAL runnup, and I rode with them for quite a while, but eventually found myself alone in a strange city...
Friendly, outgoing homeless people kept me on track for most of the race (they really got into cheering and telling people which way to go!), but eventually I got really lost, so I just stood on a street corner until someone else came by. Some guy who had double flatted already took pity on me and knowing he wasn't going to qualify, lead me all the way to the finish line. Somehow I finished 5th of the women, with all the other women who had passed me finishing after me. Not sure how that happened.
Saturday night, we went for dinner in an old brothel, then headed downtown for the big party night where they had the 2nd chance qualifiers for those who hadn't qualified in the CrossCat. The party was strange... it was in a grimy rented "space" with a bar serving only beer, that had no glasses. BYOCup? ...ok... if you didn't want to buy your own glass, you could buy beer in a free Nuun waterbottle. Weird. It was basically a bunch of drunk guys in a dark room screaming, so we left to go to a pub where we met up with Tanya, Joel & Drew, then returned to the party at 11, hoping it had picked up since we left. The place was nearly empty! Their "party all night" shut down at 11. Wow.
Sunday
After a leisurely morning brunch, we drove to the Pacific Raceways in Kent for the Big Event. Our first ever World Championship (the official unofficial WC, that is) The course had none of the silliness that the Portland races had - no bubble wall, no thunderdome, no stripper bus... Just an ordinary cross course with an extra runnup to 6 barriers. There was a lot of mud though. And lots of costumes.
The race started with everyone running straight up a grassy hill as volunteers threw water balloons at us, then along the top of the hill, then down some muddy descents onto a flat stretch. The course consisted of a bmx track, a muddy runnup, a few muddy bumpy descents, some grassy sections, a gravel run up, and 6 barriers that were in a different configuration each lap (including a limbo station on one lap) thanks to some enthusiastic spectators. Beer showers were common, and I think I still have beer in my ear.
(One of the many barrier configurations)
The racers and spectators made this race a blast. There were Beer handups pretty much anywhere on the course, 2 bacon hand up locations, and crazy cheering fans all over the place. My figure skater costume was a bit hit - I had 6 marriage proposals while racing, including one persistent spectator who at one point had all the other guys near me cheering him on and encouraging me to accept him... I was told by some guy passing me that I was "the epitome of feminine strength, grace and beauty", and was called many other things that I would normally consider rather offensive but seemed entirely in keeping with the spirit of the event.
(The official Beer & Bacon handup station)
(Beer handup just before the gravel runnup)
My bike had some problems. The cog has something wrong with it that makes the chain skip whenever you put power down, so I couldn't really stand or go hard for fear of snapping my chain, and by the end of the race I was feeling REALLY overgeared as I ground my way around the course. Turns out my bottom bracket was seizing from all the mud, and today the cranks don't really go around.
I have no idea how I placed in the race, but that's just a detail.
Wow. From your write-up, you were clearly hoping for more drinking and wildness in the evenings. It sounds like this community is struggling to figure out if it's more serious about having a good time or racing. 
