Singlespeed Worlds Day 5 - The Race

Race day dawned and it was apparent that some amongst us had peaked too early The apartment was also starting to showsigns of distressThose of us that were racing got our stuff together and prepared to head off. As you might have guessed by now, the SS worlds are not like your average bike race. For a start there's a fancy dress component. Cam put together a great ensemble

That turned heads on the way to the start
I dislike fancy dress like I dislike kareoke so hadn't worried about getting a costume together - if anyone asked I was planning to say I was dressed as a fat unfit bloke in a bike race. But I hadn't realised just how many of the 1000+ people in the race felt differently


The race was started witha yachting theme - we rode around in a tight circle for around 5 minutes until a buzzer blew and the start gate was opened. So those nearest the gate got a good start, those at the end had more work to do. This was a fun idea in theory, but in reality it meant that the fast & slow racers were bunched together getting in each others way. I'm not interested in a podium in a race like this, but get very self conscious when there are people who are stuck behind me. Not that it mattered, because we hit the first hill and everyone jumped off and walked

On the other side of this climb was a steep-ish rutted descent which turned into carnage. Less experienced riders would be riding down the racing line at a safe-ish pace whilst those in search of podiums hurtled past on the outside bouncing off passers-by and undergrowth. I saw a few nasty over-the-bars when things went wrong.
But soon we were spread out and in the singletrack. And then we'd bunch together again. It was a frustrating 15 minutes or so as there was no chance to get any flow in the your riding - you were constantly stopping & walking the bike both up and down. Some would say that's just a by-product of trying to fit 1000 people into one piece of singletrack but I think it was because we were riding with a bunch of muppets
Soon we hit the first beer-shortcut - the idea is that you can take a shorter section of track if you scull a beer on the way
I think these guys had the option of the beer shortcut by default, but seemed happy for a cold one on the way past

After this there was some serious riding to do, so I put the camera away and after another tiring hour or so I made my over the finish line on my first lap just a few minutes after the leaders. Ok, the leaders had finished their second lap at that point but that's just semantics.
We got to watch some of the other riders come in including Heather Logie, the winner of the womens race

and the disco-guy, who was riding with speakers on his forks blaring out disco. That's a real disco ball on his helmet
I'd had enough after one lap, so pulled the plug and just kicked back enjoying the atmosphere

We got back to the motel and the owner (also a mountain biker) had got into the spirit of thingsIt was one of the oddest races I've ever been in. Lots of fun and although the sheer wackiness felt over-the-top at first, after a while it started to somehow make sense. And the weather was cracking - so good that I'm still being scolded about my sun-burn one week later.....