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News: Deckerating The 2008 SSWC

On Saturday I pre-road the Championship course on the Skidsteer. The course was the same as the Napa World Cup back in '98, but with dusty summer dirt instead of Spring World Cup soil. It was very technical and loose and even scary on the cable-less steed. Nearly any soft place to crash was ablaze in bright red poison oak. An eyes wide shut experience. I was able to ride everything, but barely, and slowly. I decided that I would race with some good old-fashioned XTR disc brakes. Couldn't really enjoy the company of Barry Wicks and Travis Brown during the race if I was lying on the ground dead.

Race day started out foggy and had me concerned, as my "race kit" consisted mostly of dental floss and good intentions. Fortunately the sun burned through and the weather was perfect. The Scottish contingent was suffocating from the heat. It was probably 79 degrees. After the usual Le Mans style start, I was in maybe 50th place of the 400 racers. A little pedaling and cape crusading later, I was at the front with Barry and Mark Weir. Mark had a nice low gear and a 6" travel bike. He was haulin' ass. Weir led most of the race while Wicks and I were cheered on by the sizeable crowd; who were undeniably turned on by our dead sexy outfits. On the last lap I caught and dispatched Weir for the lead. At the top of the last descent, with an insurmountable gap, I stopped for a small sip of beer. With a half mile of flat gravel to go, I slapped Curtis, the race organizer on the bum as I lapped him. Curtis said "Good to see you guys" and I looked over my shoulder and saw Weir on my wheel. Cheeky bastard. At that point I had ridden 98% of the race in way too big of gear (34/16) and Weir had been picking daisies with his 32/18. So I pedaled away from the lycra-clad "God Of Downieville", leaving him a view of my best parts and a fluttering cape.

After 30 minutes spent sipping beers and scrubbing my entire body with Tecnu poison oak remover, I headed to the Tattoo parlor with women's winner Rachel Lloyd to receive my hard earned reward. I was almost disappointed to see that the tatoo was kinda small. Almost.

At last year's event in Scotland, the Napa delegate won the distinguished honor of hosting SSWC08 by winning a stationary bike race/scotch drinking/jig dancing competition. Curtis Inglis and his merry-makers did a bang-up job of putting on this year's race, kudos to them. The host of next year's race (as determined by bowling and Mrs. PacMan omnium) is Durango Colorado. I'll see you there.

Carl

And for more awesome Carson Blume photos from SSWC '08 go to carsonblume.com/20080824_sswc/.

Reader Comments 
Posted Thu Aug28, 2008, 7:03 PM — By Carson Blume
check out carsonblume.blogspot.com for more images and scroll to the bottom for more links to even more images!
Posted Sat Aug30, 2008, 12:55 AM — By Dana Kunz
Loved your pre-race routine with the latte and the cape. A few more pix and a report is at www.thruthetrees.com.
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