The Dirty Deed...

The deed is done, my karma debt repaid and pride swallowed. I made a promise during a 'pay it forward' barter that I'd do a CX race this year, and today was that day. I had asked for feedback on which local race to do, and all fingers pointed towards Missouri State CX Championships (Boss Cross) at Raytown BMX. The course would be a mix of typical grass CX junk and some sweet pumpish style BMX course. Well, as it goes mother nature decided to rain on the parade and the BMX section of the course was no longer included. The grass course was a muddy mess as is standard for CX, with two barriers, an up climb to a pseudo log step-over and a mess of wet and concrete type mud. Temps were in the upper thirties as a guess and other than NOT having any type of gay-ass skinny tire bike, I thought I was ready to race. You know me though; no training other than fun rides with friends. Lately I've been traveling a ton and eating like crap, so it was hard to even see my shoelaces due to my increasing Buddha. But so it goes and I was here to have fun, and fun was had.               

For months I've asked why the skinny tires? No one could give me a straight answer, but today I realized that the reason might be frame clearance as it relates to mud build-up. I am in no way interested in skinny tires, so I had to suck-it-up, and suck I did.
My weapon of choice, though I was told it was illegal, was my 26" Fixed gear Mountain Bike. I knew there was mud, and control in mud with a fixie is like none other. I thought I'd be solid, and I was - my control was good. I thought I'd be strong and able to sprint for 40 minutes.. Wrong-o! I had so much concrete mud built-up on my wheels and loaded into my frame that making forward progress was like trying to get a Catholic Priest interested in vagina. I was in dire straights and in the first 30 seconds of the race I dropped to DFL (and stayed there for the entire deal).

 I can't say that I enjoyed it at all. The only fun part of CX is the spectators mocking and prodding the racers. This I did enjoy and as the crowd yelled 'faster' as we'd approach a downhill mud slide into a tight turn, it would get us psyched to rally. Each lap you could tell the roadies from the mountain bikers as [they] ate-mega-shit in the soupy mess at that corner, all whilst being heckled and demoralized by onlookers. Now that's racing!

I was slightly upset, make that very disappointed, at the non-beer hand-ups and non-beer drinking going on. Does shaving your legs also make your balls crawl-up, reverse turtle-head? For fuck sake - a fella gets thirsty out there!

I'm also curious why you see some of the most retarded-expensive bikes out on the CX course just getting trashed with mud? Seriously? Is this how you strut your wealth or do you just like banging your head against a wall? I don't get it. Why not masturbate with sand?

All in all I am glad that The Manimal talked me into racing, that I went for it and that I got my very first DFL in the books. Now that it's over with I'm going to settle into a cold and hoppy beverage as I dream about technical single track, dry tread, fat tires and sunshine.

Peat Awesome, one helluva guy who knows what riding bikes IS all about!

EDIT (a day later): All of my excitement of getting my first DFL (Dead Fucking Last) has since faded. Official results are posted. I succeeded in my typical race goal; Finish, Not Last (and top ten is always nice too). So there you have it. I'm thinking that someday, if I can work towards a superior level of fitness, I might have to try a CX race again. Of course that means a skinny tire bike, some kind of gay costume and pre-arranged beer hand-ups/mega-hecklers! I suppose it could be fun...
I should also mention that K-Rocket, Squara, Pyro, Stev-o and The Manimal All took podium spots during the event. Seems I'm the lone snail riding CX for Ethos these days, but when your good looking you don't need to be fast. JDoug was out too, racing two back-to-back events with style. I'm sure he missed the non-hand-ups as much as I did.