Rider down. In memory of Cousin Thomas. Faithful club member from 2009 to last week.

CT enjoyed his last spring ride a couple weeks ago. Send me pics if you have them. Here are just a couple gleaned from this very archive of good times. Won't be the same without him.

Spring Ride 2014

Halloween at the Camp 2011

First race: MennoCross 2009. Before he even had the sweetest jersey in the world.

Team White Russians at Falcon 24hr.

at CX worlds

Studio CX 2017 - The Tarentino Bloodbath - results and report

The results one can plainly see here, in this careful chart. So, that was sarcasm, friends. This is a highly nuanced archival piece that took multiple skilled interpreters quite some time to decipher.

Long time readers might recognize a few ad hoc categories by hopeful racers... like "BEERS". Well, it's obvious everyone had "BEERS" (do we have to yell about it?), but really, only a few thought they would publicly share how few they had...

Further clarification might be warranted for the LBJG lap/s. A new brew pub has opened, The Little Brown Jug, near our fine race venue. They've been open for about three months, and still have one (1) beer available. It was a decent Belgian with the name of 1919, but it would be nice if they would have had at least two (2) options available. Some did two LBJG laps, while another, equally strong contingent did the Smoke's Poutine lap, and a LBJG lap. In a surprise turn, a number of formerly stalwart racers DNF'd the Smokes lap. Their names will be kept in confidence, as this has the ability to affect life and work in the future.

So, the overall recap reads thus:
Bloodbath, media lap, bloodbath, poutine/LBJG, more bloodbath, piled a lot of shit on Olli then banged drums and he still didn't wake, BigL, bloodbath, breakfast lap.

Overall Results:
(again, don't be surprised if you failed to follow from the chart, there's a lot of ins; a lot of outs on this one, including some very bad lying... and while on this sidebar, can this secretary become personal, and ponder on G's performance? A stellar effort all around, only to be sidelined by what some argue is a technicality (to be countered by references to Vietnam and rules): after years of experience on the tour, the man brought no chips. None. Call it oversight, call it poor planning, call it maybe he had to pack his crap on his own without his good spouse to oversee, but it's a disappointment for certain. Also, more broadly, the DNFs ruled the day, in a bad way as you'll see.)

1 (tie). Energizer - 10 laps
1 (tie). The Secretary - 10 laps
2. Impaler - 9 laps
3. KK - 1 lap

DNF
Vic
Mike G
Olli (see the piling on Instagram)
Graham (the lesser)
Cousin Thomas
JonnyS
The Hipster
Howden (although the chicken was appreciated)
The Cycle Chick (the picture with the wine and missing teeth was a race highlight)
The Giant
The Awesome One

DNS
G
The DFL
The President

Huge thanks once again to JP for the fine hosting.

24hrs of Tarantino/Studio Cross - February 18-19

Yes, this is happening. JP will host us again.

Spring Ride -the countdown is fixed - destination unkown

Despite the countdown having been set to the wrong date for the last, oh, year (it is now correct)... there has been an unprecidented level of agreement on date. Some years, it has taken months of intense meeting and back room deals to iron out the date, that has theoretically been the same for over a decade.

So, here we have an agreed upon date, and our trails are on fire.
 

Vigorous debate is now ensuing on location. We haven't had a good location argument since around 2004.

TNR Report - Great Awards

Great acting deserves great rewarding. And so, G received a great honour last night for his lead role in the Male Prairie Cyclocross Rider filim.
View here to join the millions thousands who have been moved by this gripping documentary.


Steve "The Voice" powered through a fairly long-winded and oft interupted awarding speech, to the point that it's not quite clear to this reporter what the actual award is titled. It is written in tape on the award, so ask G what he won. It's really important, though.

As you can see, the trophy is a cyclist who is curling, representing the diversity G displayed in setting up a cross course and shooting a feature piece at virtually the same time.

Congrats G.

Also, there was a token bike ride, and less token beer drinking, and a fire at the Impaler's.

Spring Ride date

The countdown has been updated to reflect the new date.

June 5-7. Those who should be there know who they are (in a literal sense).

24 Hours of Brad Pitt - Media Lap

24 hours of Brad Pitt - Studio Cross 2015

Good times were had at this years Nordic CX 24-hour race! It does seem that each year the total cumulative riding distance diminishes slightly, but that fact doesn't seem to hurt the competition!

 Oh the race... The Drama... or should we say "Dramas". 

Good to see over 18 participants this year!

 Here are this years results:
1st - DFL - 11 Laps
2nd - The Energizer, Johnny S, The Hipster, G - 10 Laps
6th - The Impaler - 9 Laps
7th - Benjamin Button the Messenger guy, DanE, Greyhammy, Jeremy - 6 Laps

 No Mans Land.... He was there but unable to lift a sharpie to fill in his laps...
Mike G

 ***DNF*** (Missed B.L.Lap)
CHB - 6 Laps
Vic - 5 Laps
The Big Frame - 4 Laps
Andrea - 3 Laps
Juan Epstein - 2 Laps
Tegan - 1 Lap 

***DNF*** (didn't bring a bike - slacker penalty)
Cousin Thomas - 5 Laps

 

The Last TNR with Brother David

We hesitate to use the word 'last', since we are quite sure this is not the last we have seen of David, nor was this likely his last TNR. David, like the TNR, is not something that just goes away never to return. Rather, much like the scars one might get from violently and repeatedly crashing one's bicycle, they become a part of us, never to be scrubbed away by time, distance, or copious amounts of Polysporin.

In spite of conditions that the Finnish might describe as 'Cold as Russian Hell', a sizeable contingency left their warm domiciles to partake in the farewell festivities. Organized by The Hipster, the night would include riding some trails, followed by an evening of revelry at The Good Will for (presumably) Good Times, Good Company, and Good Pizza.

It was, as they say, a Swiss watch of a plan.

We assembled at the Junkshon, where it was determined the weather was not nearly as despicable as originally anticipated. Here, The Inhaler gives the conditions the thumbs up, or perhaps flips me the bird. Such is the eternal mystery of the lobster.

Daniel arrived sporting a very large rack. Six pounds of rack, to be exact. While it impressed the crowd with both its size and weight, Daniel admitted the handling and manoeuvrability are not ideal.

The trails were in excellent condition, which made for pleasant and fast riding. The ice skating trails through the Forks are now finished, a fact we discovered by crashing spectacularly as our bikes mysteriously disappeared from beneath us. That gravity, she is a bitch.

When we'd had our fill of falling, we made our merry way to The Good Will to thaw out and rehydrate. We had reserved the massive wooden harvest table, no doubt laboriously fabricated by an army of hipsters and their dads' power tools.

Pizza Cat got the pizza ball rolling, as is her way, and before long, each of us had easily consumed our own body weight in delicious, thin crusted pizzas. It was decided that Liquid Smoke should be the official condiment sponsor of the FGBC and shall henceforth be put on everything.

It was also decided that after several unfortunate years of being passed over, Brad Pitt will be the subject of this winter's 24 hour race. It is anticipated that during the showing of Fight Club things might get a little weird.

Overall, the venue suited us just fine, and the vintage punk was a perfect soundtrack to the evening.

Brother David, Calamity Dave, Hot Legs, Cyclocross Jesus... no matter what we call you, know you will be missed. Like your namesake, we hope you come back soon.

Which is an appropriate segue to the interesting story of the image at the beginning of this post. The story is interesting only in that we are not entirely sure how or why it happened, but that it happened at all is a testament (ahem) to the good company and good times we had. Amen.

Nordic Cross News. What?

At a very formal and sombre gathering of the FGBC, to mark the passing of a member from our midst, some serious business was negotiated. Please pay attention and miss these notable meetings at your peril.

January 6 - Pizza Cross (planned by, obviously, the VP Pizza)

Jan 20 - Curry Cross

Feb 21 - 24hrs of Brad Pitt

The countdown has been attended to

With all the time spent around this...
http://winnipegcx2014.ca/
there's barely been time to pay attention to ourselves. No matter what goes wrong at CX2014, spring ride will come.

2014 Tour de France Pool

The 2014 Tour de France Pool is open for business. Good luck and have fun!

The Rules:

1. Choose a team of nine riders from the Rider List based on the criteria listed below. Your team must be submitted before the race starts on Saturday. Submit your team here.

2. Entry into the pool is free. There are no prizes.

3. The pool is open to anyone. Feel free to invite others to participate.

4. Points will be awarded based on the scoring system below.

5. Any rider who is disqualified from the race for a doping violation forfeits all his points. If he survives the race and gets busted later, you get to keep your points.

6. Daily results will be posted on The Twitter: @Dark_Red_Racing. Trash-talking and other forms of vicarious racing banter is strongly encouraged using this same medium. Official hashtag: #TdFPool2014.


Building your team:

1. Pick two GC riders. Their combined values (the numbers to the right of the riders name) must add up to six or more.

2. Pick two sprinters. Combined values must add up to five or more.

3. TT Men and Climbers - Pick one rider from each list. Their combined values must add up to five or more.
4. Pick any two Stage Hunters. No math involved in this one. Yay!

5. Pick one Wild Card. Again, no math!

Scoring Individual stages: 150 125 100 90 80 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5
Final GC: 600 500 400 350 300 275 250 225 200 175 150 135 120 105 90 75 60 45 30 15
Final Points Classification: 120 90 60 40 20
Final Mountains and Classification: 120 90 60 40 20
Final Young Rider Classification: 120 90 60 40 20

Spring Ride 2014

The Beer indeed went to Ingolf. Good times were had:)

The Klubhaus gets it's due

Here's a nice piece on our Klubhaus. The FGBC was interviewed for it, but the writer tells me the sidebar we contributed to was left on the cutting room floor. Next time. Or not.

The beer is going to Ingolf

Tuesday night's agenda was important, in an annual sort of way. Some back and forth on the date of Spring Ride made it feel like the olden days... like around the turn of the millenia. In fact, this blog URL continuously references that first year, when we didn't know where we were going, some didn't have bikes, and the 'when' made our paper daytimers shake in fear (OK, I had a Palm Pilot, and I'm kind of proud of that... would still use it if they had put the phone in it right away).

At any rate, a subdued, mostly drive-in, collective, huddled at the middle table at the north end of the klubhaus... and when the topic finally came up, there was at first quiet, and then the DFL said, "just have it on the regular date, it will be easier", or something like that, and that was it. No debate, no balancing this conflict versus that... Almost like the year when location was so up-for-grabs we were almost paralyzed, and the President wrote, in the comments of this blog, "The beer is going to Ingolf", and it was done.

Now the phrase has become the call for keeping things simple, "don't fix something that's not broken" might be most analogous.

So, hey, the countdown is unchanged, the beer is going to Ingolf.

Spring Classics Pool

The 2014 FGBC Spring Classics Pool is open for business!

Same deal as usual, except there is no longer a distinction between the Adrennes guys and the rest of the riders.

The list of riders and team building options can be found here. There are no doubt plenty of people who should be there. And some who are listed who may not even race. Rankings are entirely subjective and in some cases completely random. Our subjectivities here in the Dept. of Vicarious Racing may or may not be well-honed. Take your chances.

Teams are due Saturday morning at 9am CST. Submit them by email to the Dept. of Vicarious Racing. And make sure to indicate which option you've used to build your team. Failure to do so may result in disqualification.

Entry is free and open to all.

There will be no prizes.

Spring Ride Anticipation

Using basic Maths, it appears we are only FOUR (4) months to the next spring ride!

Winter is long, but do not give up hope!

Remember the good times had at last year's spring ride by checking out these photos...and what the world looks like without a blanket of snow covering everything.

more than vaguely familiar

somehow I think we'd get on with these folk... Minneapolis isn't that far away...

All-City: Bandit Cross from Brendan Lauer on Vimeo.

Did Somebody Say CX Worlds?

We should really be holding a fundraiser to help get ourselves to Hoogerheide for CX Worlds. But we're a lazy bunch. So we may as well help Mike and Willem go in our place.

Nationals are coming

Cyclocross Nationals Weekend // 2014 Winnipeg, Manitoba from Handcraft on Vimeo.