Do you see what happens Larry?

Do you see what happens when you throw beer at Sven Nys? This is what happens Larry. This is what happens when you throw beer at Sven Nys.



This bit of drama took place today in Loenhout. Albert won the real race, ahead of Stybar. And Matt won the vicarious race, finishing ahead of Jay and Jonny G.

On Wednesday in Zolder, Nys bitch-slapped Albert on the last lap once again. And Jay vicariously bitch-slapped the trio of Brad, KK, and Matt, who finished in a three-way tie for second place.

Full results and overall standings here.

Post-Feast Ride Report

It was just Terry, Anna, and me. But we hit the jackpot. Big time. The temps warmed up a bit and the trail conditions are pretty much perfect right now. We rode through Whittier and the Concrete Jungle before dropping onto the Seine and riding the river to Windsor Park. And then we rode it back. We have no photos to prove it. But it was very, very awesome. We will do it again soon. Stay tuned.

Maybe we should ride some bikes

Bring your junk to the Junk-shon tomorrow (Thursday) at 10am if you want to ride.

CX Pool Roundup

There will be a lot of vicarious racing happening in the next week. So we'd best get caught up before things start to get real crazy.

There's nothing happening in the US right now. Everyone's in Europe for the Christmas series.

We've had three races in the past five days. The winners were as follows:

Sint-Niklaas: Terry
Essen: Chris H and Dan
Namur: Brad

Matt continues to lead the overall race and looks to be pretty much unstoppable. He and Chris O have both passed the 10,000 point mark. Down at the other end of the standings, Bill has finally surpassed 5000 points.

Full results and overall standings here.

In case you missed the live coverage, make sure to take some time over the holidays to watch the race in Essen. It doesn't get much better than that.




Also, we have a rare opportunity to watch the women race in Namur. Not to mention a rare opportunity for some Czech commentary. Best to take advantage of it.

EOTW CX Report

If, by "End of the World," they meant a bike handling shit show, then the much maligned Mayans proved to be a prescient lot indeed. At least in the case of my race. I don't think there were very many laps in which I didn't find myself face down in a snowbank somewhere. But at least I didn't wind up getting wrapped around a tree. For a split second, it seemed like it was going to happen. The soft snowbank proved to be a much happier alternative in that case.

Not everyone fared so poorly. Daniel thrilled the crowd with a dramatic victory in the A Race. Technically, we can't claim his results just yet. But it will be nice to have him in the henhouse for 2013. And the Impaler was the first male in the B Race. He was not the first human, however. That honour would go to Leah Kirchmann, racing her first cx race of the year. This distinction also happens to coincide with Anna failing to win her first cx race of the year. The Demon Rooster finished dead last among the women in the B Race.

The Secretary was not there to shoot a video. But JP was there to pick up the slack. He also edited and posted it too. Maybe he could give the Secretary a hand with this year's DarkCross movie, not to mention the last two editions of the 24 Hours of Falcon Ridge. Without archival footage, it's almost as though those three events did not take place.

Results here.

EOTW CX

Well, we're still here. At least I think we are. So I guess we're racing tomorrow. By the time we're done racing for the first time in eight weeks, I suspect we may wish the Mayans had been correct.

Don't forget to pre-register. Yes, even if you bought a Season Pass, you must pre-register online for this one. Unless you'd rather pay more on race day.

Everything you need to know is here.

Vicarious Leuven

Prince Dan won it. Details here.

The holiday cx craziness begins tomorrow with the GP de Ster Sint-Niklaas race. Some kid named Boom will be there. Stybar will be showing up at a few races too. That should be fun.

Vid from Saturday Morning Ride

here. See Craig bail @ 2:02

Saturday Morning Ride Report

This saturday saw another instalment of the Saturday Morning Ride series. Can I call it a series if there have only been two? Anyway. This time it was considerably warmer and a few more dudes joined in. JP, Daniel, the cricket and I rode Whittier Park trails and some of the Seine River. The trails were snowy and hard to stay on. There were many endo's. Most of them were from me. Stupid bike. The river riding was good, that is until JP smashed his rear wheel through the ice. Good times.

No ride next Saturday, since we will all be busy riding the End of the World Cross race. You should all be there too.

Leuven

It is not just the home of the largest beer company in the world and one of the oldest European universities. It  is also the site of a cylocross race, of course. This one is less meadow and more forest. And there is a tricky ridge that has to be descended and climbed which should make for some interesting moments.

The women are already done. Sanne Cant won it.

The men's race starts at 8am. Live streams here.

12/12/12 Ride Report

Don't worry 9-5ers. It was no fun at all. Dropped chains and riding off cliffs. That's pretty much all that happened. We will do it again next week though. Maybe that will be more fun.

Mid-Week Mid-Day Ride

What better way to celebrate the fact that the work week is more than half done than to go for a bike ride? Terry and I are meeting at the Junk-shon on Wednesday at 1:30. Join us is you can.

Hal and Ben

They are an unlikely couple. But their fortunes were linked in that they each picked up two wins this weekend in the 2012-13 FGBC CX Pool. Ben won the two Belgian races while Hal was tops at the USGP finale in Bend.

We had some exciting action at the top of the standings. Matt still leads. But Chris O has secured his second place standing. But the real drama took place on the third step of the podium. First KK shoved JP from the podium. It's the first time JP's been out of the top three since the vicarious cx season started. But KK's time on the podium was short lived. Anna bumped KK down to fourth overall, which in turn bumped JP all the way down to fifth. JP is now over 1200 points back of Matt. How the mighty have fallen. The rest of us can take some solace in this. Maybe it will happen to Matt too. But that doesn't look likely right now.

Full results and overall standings here.

Winter Weekend Ride Report

It's winter, and winter is cold, so sometimes it can be hard to drag yourself out of bed on a Saturday and go ride. The thing is though, riding in winter is actually so awesome. So with that in mind, Daniel and I met at Bar Italia this morning for pre-ride coffee, then headed out for two hours of ripping around the ass forest. On the way out, we were heckled by some hooligan on Wellington who was apparently driving Brad's old truck. I wonder who that could have been.

In the forest we came across two interesting structures - a teepee and a half-build log cabin with a large animal skull inside. Cool

The weather was fantastic. No need for anything more than the sweetest wool jersey in the world today. Days like that don't come very often, so it's best to take advantage of them. 

Good times. Maybe we should do it again next weekend. 

Scheldecross Antwerp

On now. Here.

Lots of sand at this one.

FGBC Approved Christmas Gifts, Vol. 1

Via stomachofanger.

CX Pool Roundup

It was a bad weekend for JP. He came into it sitting in second place, just 85 points behind Matt. By the end, he'd slid down to third overall and now sits almost 500 points off the overall lead. Chris O has moves up into second overall. He is 135 points behind the VP Style. Ali had a bad weekend too. He dropped from fourth overall to sixth. KK now occupies fourth place and, at 35 points back, is breathing down JP's neck. And Anna moves up to fifth overall.

As for the rest of us, it's pretty much over.

Full results and overall standings here.

TV Listings

Nothing to watch this morning. Unless there was a feed of Tom Beans' charity cx race that we missed. But that would have been bittersweet anyway, since Beans himself wasn't racing. He was in the hospital with an intestinal infection.

But tomorrow, the World Cup series returns to Roubaix after a two year break. If the conditions are anything like they were the last time they raced there, it should be fun to watch.

In case you've forgotten how that one played out, you can watch the last three laps, in all their muddy glory, here:






The course map hardly does justice to how tough the course can get in places. But it is interesting to look at anyway, if only for an example of how to squeeze a cx course into an area in which there doesn't appear to be much green space.

Coverage starts at 7:30 am. Look for links here.