(Thanks to Kurt Peterson for the picture! Good work man)
In the words of a very wise woman (ahem...maybe me) "I loooove singleshpeeding".
Last weekend was a time for me to amalgamate my passions—beer drinking, paying out Huffy bikes and riding one speeds—at the A.R.S.E singlespeed nationals.
The weekend of festivities was held at Awaba race track, with ongoing hilarities held at the Wangi Wangi base camp, located right on Lake Macquarie—magic!
The racing consisted of two time trials, an uphill and a downhill. Unfortunately, though, the organisers messed up the downhill timing by failing to synchronise their watches—awesome.
The main event was held at 2pm, after lunch (sausages on bread) in the searing heat of day.
The mercury didn't seem to climb quite as high as the predicted 40 degrees, but around 38 would be an honest estimate. The XC race began down a fireroad not unlike Killingsworth's old access road in the charging bunch of 1spdr's, I see Aido on the side of the road with a flat on his SS commuter bike with 32's.
I was annoyed for him...but it's not like he didn't know what he was getting into with 32's! On what is essentially a road bike!
He passed me when, later in the race, I have a flat (but no 15mm, as it goes...) and I am trying to hail a 15mm. I end up running to the beer tent where the guys take over but they are bit drunk and take a while to fix it. I storm of. My next lap, I take the long cut (note: ss racing includes a beer shortcut—usually available for all but ONE lap, this was my longcut lap) and I am feeling ok, get to the end of the longcut and Pete Blacksheep comes into the trail I am riding out of .
What the?
"You're going the wrong way".
Indeed. I called it quite for racing and the rest of the race is social beer drinking and singlespeeding for singlespeeding's sake—my long held national singlespeeder champion dreams now quashed...(um, ahem).
I drag Rob out for a couple of laps, and declare, loudly, perhas a few too many times after thee beer at 38 degrees while riding bikes "hey Rob....I Loooooooove singleshpeeing! It's like my favourite thing to do, I love it, it's awesome, yeah" several times
There was also the 16" crit, the Huffy toss, the bunnyhop contest and the skid/wheelie contest (could've taken that skid contest easy, but my mouth isn't that big!)
In the end NZ SS'r Garth and NSW's own Vanina were champions. Aido and I took out the time trial, so singlespeed national champions of something, at least???!!!