Big Bikes

Ice Weasels Cometh Course Recon

Went down to Wrentham this morning for a little course recon. I had the course mapped out in my mind but I was anxious to actually ride around the place and get a feel for it.

I brought Cross expert Colin Reuter with me, he may have three fingers but what he lacks in fingers he makes up for in brain cells. I just have lots of fingers. One time I counted eleven.
The next day I counted ten.

Todd Downs came along as well. He will be running the MAVIC neutral support
at the race. Yes, we have Mavic neutral support, just like The Le Tour De France and like The Le Tour De France we will have a caravan of follow cars chasing the riders around the course. We may only have barriers for one lap of the first race, but we will have lots of damaged follow cars which we will sell for a huge discount at the end of the day. One part of this is a joke, the other part isn't, you decide which is which.

One of the Follow...tractors. What else do you think would follow racers around a farm?
Lapped riders get the mower blade. This is a high stakes race.

I took this photo from the official Camera Helicopter.

And by that I mean I climbed up a rickety ladder, onto a bowed out platform of ancient planks,
and squeezed through a tiny opening into the cupola of the barn, which was full of pigeon crap.

We will be mowing the course. And by we I mean my cousin Christy. The women in my family were taught to run heavy equipment, the men were taught to text message really fast on their cell phones and design really killer Myspace pages.

Phew, that was scary. I wrote "Myspace" and it didn't get flagged by Spellcheck as if it had been added to the English language. Spellcheck was off, all is well, proceed.

Hell's Garden. It's going to be fun tearing through this bit.

A couple barriers to the right of the wall and hedges will make a nice run up.

I'll be getting married under this tree this summer...after we fix the lawn.

Pickles tells me how she feels about rigid 29ers. She rides a Session 88 and wears shin guards. Four of them.

Ya, we gotta move this pile of stuff. The planks on top will be fashioned into really awesome hoppable height barriers. If you want two sets of hoppable barriers (or really easy to run over barriers) raise your hand.

The Start/Finish chute.

Some tilled field we won't be using.

Another View.

What we are calling "The Belgian Section". It just feels kinda Belgian.

I'll be posting more photos of the course as it develops. Remember, this race is December 13th, just a few minutes from the Wrentham Outlets. So come down, do some racing or some spectating, then do some last minute shopping for anyone who might have late December birthdays or something.

Another important thing to know is that this is private property and therefore people can imbibe any sort of beverage they would like in plain view. They can also hand any sort of beverage to riders who request it, so long it is in a plastic cup or can. Riders accepting drinks in large glass boots will be given verbal warnings.