The Bitter Cold Showdown

This was such a fun race, and a great way for people to try out cyclocross in a low pressure enviroment.  Andy and Ernest did a great job organizing this "bandit" race, although I've never heard of a bandit race course looking this good. I showed up early on Sunday, to help with the setup, not really knowing what to expect. Andy was already there putting in stakes, and gave Ernest and I the basic rundown of the course. Andy entrusted me with his course map, and we went to work. Having helped to set up several courses, I was surprised at how fast we were able to make it come together. By the end, we had a pretty technical little course, with some off cambers, a set of stairs, two ride ups, barriers, and another forced dismount. So much fun crammed into a small course! There was also the unique feature of two "shortcuts", which would allow people to skip one of the ride ups/run ups by eating a stale munchkin, or doing a random physical task. This added another fun element to the course, and made it friendlier for first time racers.

This was also very unique in that it was a relay style race, complete with batons. The "rules" stated that you couldn't place them in jersey pockets, which led to some interesting ways to carry the batons. Also, if you dropped one during transitions, you had to wait 5 seconds before continuing. There were 8 teams of 4 or 5 people, which was a pretty big turnout. The 3 teams who rode the most laps would move on to the finals. I rode with the Hup team of Chip, Parke, Ernest, and Cosmo. This was my first race as a Hupster, so Chip let me borrow his vest. 

Andy Huff gotz batonz.  Photo: Roger Cadman

I was happy that Ernest was finally going to get a chance to do a race. It was also really cool that Cosmo made it all the way up from CT to ride with Ernest, and coach him on the course. 

We did a Le Mans start for the race, to add to the general level of shenanigans. Chip took a nice little video of it. Everyone was cheering, or heckling in a friendly manner for the entire race. Several times during the race, the police rolled by slowly watching us, but never bothered us. I had to cut out before the finals, because of work, but I heard that they were just as fun. I'm really looking forward to another version of this in August!

Check it out! Tiffany Remy took some great shots of the race, which can be found here. Nick also made a really slick movie using some his Go-Pro footage, spliced with Tiffany's photos.