George Ward Park

This may be the best cross venue in bham when this happens. There is already a smokin' cross course spray painted through the park if you happen to go out there. This is a course that I'm planning to do next year. The added paved trails will be great for tempo sections. I think some of the proposed paved areas are already in place, but are broken cobblestone. George Ward is a big enough park to host a national event as well.

charlemagne's got sumthin' in his sweatpants

Fain Park this weekend, awesome power course. Unforgettable battles to ensue. ESPN will be onhand with live coverage...

soweeeet!

fearsome four

the four week stretch of racing is over. we've seen some great action in all categories with lead changes in every category. the team race should be interesting in the final stretch as ERA-Oxford Realty and BOO-KOO BBC seem to be locked and loaded for battle. Hurley took another impressive win with Will Fyfe showing some stunning power with his bridge to 10 sec. after a flat. Hurley thought he had it in the bag until he looked back and saw this:


He jumped like a scalded dog after seeing a possessed chaser and pushed the gap back to :30 sec.

Ursula Sandefuer killed it again proving that there may be a battle for cross queen in Bama.
Willie and Jimi domo'd the masters field. Everette and Dmac...need I say anymore? The men's 4 field saw a guest from Ga. who shook it up and gave the regulars a new carrot to chase. I think Heather Ladd won the women's 4 race again.

Thanks to the Wig's Wheels/Mellow Mushroom crew for a great race, which I thought was like a 2 mile mtn. bike race loop. Others felt like it suited the road set, either way it was killa'. I mean where else do you get a set of barriers through a hay barn?

Next up is the biggie- The Alabama State Championship race at Fain Park in Montgomery, Al!! We don't have jersey this year, but we will have a special race # printed for the winners to wear for the remainder of the season through next years race.

After Montgomery there's only one left-Sportsman's lake park in Cullman where the masterminds of the CCC will no doubt be trying to show that they hold the torch on course design and venue again for '07... they'll have to work pretty hard to reach the bar this year though!

If you haven't made it out to one of the races yet this year, bring it. It doesn't matter how your bent-knobbie or skinny, short tracks or crits, 24's or road races. Racing cross in the fall and winter makes you a better bike racer, period, Whether it's the top end that you maintain or the fluid bike handling skills that you develop, you will be a better bike racer in the summer by racing cross in the fall and winter.

it's here

cx mag!
and who knew this existed?

This weekend is Anniston...got me to thinking, Anniston is the race last year where Jrod proved that Hurley COULD be beat... think he can do it again? I'm just sayin'

i'm excited to race again this weekend, just hope the jammin' legs don't get in the way of the racin' legs as one of my favorite bands, The Hold Steady are playing the Bottltree saturday night.


and don't forget-montgomery is the state championship race on dec. 2nd and...well, the infamous montgomery mini mall playa' is gonna perform before the hold steady:

Wigtime!

It's time for the crowd favorite Anniston race. Wig is reported to have some crazy course setup at camp lee. Igloo cups will be in order. I believe the contact info. is wrong on the flyer, if you have questions, contact Wig's Wheels in Anniston @ 256-237-9447. I'll have the updated standings up...soon, still fighting through the haze of Avondale and Chico's finest.

Law and Order have been restored

Mike Hurley broke out the night stick and set the record straight yesterday. Wow, that was impressive. Brandon Curtis backed up last weeks win with a 2nd to prove he's no fluke. Everette and Dmac ran their weekly clinic in 3/4 race and then Dmac goes on to take 5th in the 1/2/3 race ahead of Mr. Eric Murphy...What's the old saying?-been baggin' long?
ERA-Oxford realty guys along with TRIA Market pulled together to really pull this show off at Avondale park, nice work. I was astounded with the amount of people that pulled together to help us with this race. So many showed up Sat. to set up, I didn't have enough tools for all the hands! AWESOME!!! Thanks B'ham bicycle community.
I want to say a special thanks to Jerry Griffies and Stephen Erickson who seemed to possess as much or more passion than myself for this race.

Ted Bowling took some truly amazing pictures of the races, I mean these are some of the most captivating shots I've seen of any sporting event. If you want to sell your shots to athletes this is what they should look like : http://tedbowling.smugmug.com/Sports/410359

sidetrackedmag.com was also onsite to cover our sport with some quality shots as well. Bert says they should have video of the past 2 races up soon, so keep a lookie on their site!

Jeff Dorminey got some great shots as well that are here.

Team Competition

IS HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Era-Oxford Realty and BBC-Boo Koo are neck and neck with The Mellow Mushroom boys faking in the draft and waiting to pounce. Keep your eyes on the amount of racers doubling up this weekend.

Sponsors for the Avondale race this weekend-AND A COUPLE OF WORDS ABOUT THIS WEEKEND

If you are running a bottle cage on your bike, take it off! This weekend you will be shouldering your bike. You can have someone in the feed zone to hook you up each lap or carry a bottle in your jersey pocket. If you are using a full squish mtb, try to practice being creative with shouldering your rig. Is anyone else's right elbow aching like mine? I think we should call it crossbow. If you've got pit wheels, bring em.




Couldn't get some of them on the flyer and couldn't do it without them. Please support the people that support us.

Mid-week buzz

I'm probably not supposed to be posting here, cuz I ain't Brent and I didn't get permission. Alas, I'm the web dude that does the behind the scenes glory work here, so I figure I can get away with it this one time.

This video has no doubt been making the rounds, especially since being mentioned in VeloNews a couple weeks back (with the wrong URL). How many of us ran to that URL only to find it didn't exist? Bummer!

Get some of those run ups. They're killing those barriers. And maybe -2:42 to go, there's a start for the men's pro race. Ouch, they're RAILING it. And who out there isn't a sucker for some old school Van "Lee Roth" Halen?

some more pitchers

Are Here.

Everyone coming to Avondale Park this weekend please park on 40th street as opposed to the park's small pkg lot. 40th Street is where registration and most of the action will be anyway. Please go to this link for a google map to avondale park.

I expect to see the biggest slugfest yet in the 1,2,3 race this weekend as Brandon Curtis stepped up to prove that he's not a pretender in Prattville. The race between Brandon and Hurley on Sunday was a nailbiter, they swapped licks for the full 60 min. which kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Will Fyfe has had a string of bad luck with mechanicals when he was showing winning form. Jerrod Dorminey will strike again and Avondale may suit his stealthy skills. Will Hibberts has the skill and fitness to make everyone look silly, but will he focus soley on the 1,2,3 race this weekend instead of racing masters 1st? Avondale will seperate conteders from pretenders for all to see.

Bring it.

Fried

Don't know about you all, but I'm fried from cooter efforts yesterday. Dave Hiott and crew really did a great job yesterday with a great park, layout and support. Jeff Haines was on hand for the officiating and did a flawless job as usual. I really got the feeling yesterday that cross is taking hold in Alabama. I thought it would take 3 years to really see the fruit grow. But Prattville and Tuscaloosa proved to me that we can sustain a truly competitive season with just alabama racers. I think the next step is to work with Tenn. and Ga. to stagger weekends where we have a regional battlefest and then the big one- Crank Bros. visits the Dirty South! and regional riders destroy the national field!!!

The series standings are posted. There are some problems I'm working on-the masters 45+ were given points based on a 60 min race instead of a 45 min race for tuscaloosa... and the team standings are a work in progress, should have them up today or tomorrow.

This weekend is one I've been dreaming of for years, Avondale Park Cyclocross, As far as I know this will be the first cyclocross race ever held in B'ham proper...so it's a history making weekend. Avondale park just has what, in my mind, are all the key ingredients for classic euro cross. It's rich history and urban feel are classic. The best part is that I can stroll 1 block from my house and I'm there. We have held several practice sessions there this year which helps to iron out kinks and helps with course design.

I know over the past two years I've heard and read people spewing about "cross should be this" and "cross should be that". I'll admit that I've prolly been guilty as well. My opinion has gotten much more streamlined with regards to what I want BAMACROSS to be: 1.HARD, 2.FUN and that's it! our courses and venues have had similarities and differences but those 2 things have remained constant.

There are a few photo options posted in the comments section.

pictures from cooter's pond

http://community.webshots.com/album/561325739fDNPqa

cooter raffle!

that's right, we'll be raffling off cooters this weekend! wait, i messed that up. there will be a raffle at this weekend's race with some sweet stuff from maxxis,hammer,tifosi and others. this will be worth sticking around for. the raffle will conclude during the kid's race... for some reason this race makes me think of jessica simpson, go figure.
just for clarification:
Cooter is also sometimes used as southeastern US slang as a term for "snapping turtles." Inverness, Florida sparked controversy by founding a "cooter festival" in celebration of their local turtles. (The controversy was detailed on The Daily Show on December 2, 2004.)

photos from ttown

are HERE