photo by Katy P
So last weekend was the BIG Cross Crusade Halloween Weekend races in Bend, Oregon. My team, Ironclad, got a house for the weekend and a few hearty partiers/racers, descended on the fair high desert town with massive amounts of cardboard in tow. No, the cardboard wasn't just from the boxes of beer we were bringing with us, it was for our Halloween costumes... CARS! Someone, I'm not quite sure who, thought it would be an epically awesome and a hugely bad idea to dress up as cars. That way in unison, we could cause traffic jams and hog the race course. Needless to say, the idea of moving around in a huge cardboard box while biking, dismounting, carrying your bike over barriers and up staircases is just a dumb idea. So, it seemed perfect for the Cross Crusade.
The several of us participating in the muckery, chose our vehicles. I, a proud Subaru owner, chose a subaru. The idea struck me as amusing in endless ways, A) I wasn't really dressing up, B) but yet I was, C) more or less, I was making fun of myself, and D) SUBARU's are all over the frickin road in Oregon. It's great!
So needless to say, I packed a huge box in my car and spent Saturday night painting my own little subaru as a silver fox. Adding in details like the suby logo, front grill of the 2003, and windows and a little black lab mix in the back seat (much like my own dear sweet Anna). It was really fun in our little Ironclad house, to be spread out in the garage painting and cutting with my teammates while folks, not participating in the costume idea, drank beer inside. I mean, don't get me wrong, we were drinking beer in the garage... but I just kinda smiled when I realized that the scene reminded me of art school. That's what we'd all do when projects were do, gather in a common space, share materials and chit-chat while working tirelessly away. Apparently, this scene was not lost on anyone else as several of my teammates also went to design school and we all shared the same thought... "doesn't this remind you of studio?". Who would have thought that this long after college, you and your friends all gather to work on art projects?
Also amusing about this whole thing, is that you could tell everyone's focus on design based upon how they approached the idea of creating a car. Trevor and Alana, both former architecture students, created highly crafted 3-d cars that either they fit into, or could be places on their race steeds. Myself, a graphic designer, approached the problem from a 2-d perspective. Meaning, I paid attention to graphic details and how the car looked from the front and from the back.
So anyways, after the paint had dried, I shoved the silver suby in the back of my reali-life subaru and set off for the race course. Everything seemed to be going great until right before my race when I put the costume on, I forgot a huge design flaw... I had never actually tried riding my bike with the costume on. I knew that the costume would fit, but I never really thought about little things like tire drag and going up and down hills. Slight major oversight.
bikeportland.org
Not really caring about the "race" part of the race, I signed up in the men's SS category so that my teammates and I could ride our cars together in the same race and cause the most havoc. I started in the back knowing that I wasn't going to be going anywhere any time soon. The first obstacle to clear (aside from the car rubbing on my wheels) was a huge wooden ramp that was set up on the course. Normally, I would be well aware of this going into it, but I had kinda forgotten about the ramp thinking that the stairs would be my biggest challenge to over come. Having said that, I didn't attack the ramp with the speed or intensity needed for a single speed bike... and so halfway up, I just couldn't get my bike going anymore. This meant a speedy dismount from the bike with my costume on (something else I also hadn't really worked on). I managed to stay upright, but sadly the smooth plywood of the ramp at the steep angle did not have any traction. Meaning, myself and my bike and my costume were slowly sliding down the ramp.
The best part about this whole next scene is realizing that this is the place on the course where EVERYONE is watching you. It's in the center, by the beer garden, and everyone can see you. As well, since I waited last to go, all the other racers have passed through this area already which means that everyone has no one to watch but me.
So, this came into play when I heard everyone yelling at me as I slowly slid back down the ramp. "USE YOUR ALL-WHEEL DRIVE" the beer garden yelled. I was able to stop myself from sliding further and pathetically crawled over to the railing of the ramp where I pulled myself to the top. Here, everyone is still watching and heckling. I quickly rearrange my costume, mount my bike and start to head down the other side of the ramp. Which quickly brought about another issue I had slightly overlooked, the fact that when I tilt downwards, so does my costume. So needless to say, as soon as I start to head down I begin to run over the front of my costume. At this point I was pretty sure I was going to endo over the handlebars. I saw my young racing career ending with broken arms and splinters embedded in my face. All I could think was, well... hopefully someone will get this on film.
photos by David M
For whatever reason, be it my quick release duct-tape or the bike tubes I used for suspenders, running over my costume with my front wheel did not cause me to endo... but instead resulted in my costume getting horribly tangled in my bike. I was able to guide my steed and costume down the embankment without crashing, but had to come to rest at the bottom to untangle myself. At this point, I just envisioned the men's B's field flying over the ramp and landing on poor me and my wreckage of a Subaru. Thankfully, some handy bystanders jumped in the course and helped me untangle the mess I had found myself in.
I was able to get the badly damaged but still usable costume back on and set off, once again determined to at least do ONE lap with my costume before it officially bit the dust. So I rode, one hand holding my car up and one hand on the wheel, everyone chanting... "GO SUBARU!!!". Not too long after the ramp debacle, I came across another nemesis I did not plan for... a gravel hill. So once again I was unable to build up the speed I needed for the hill because one hand was holding my costume up, so half-way up the hill I stopped and had to hop off the bike. At this point, I was getting heckled by four men who were just sitting there watching me struggle. I took the car off of me to readjust it and then, by some saving grace of God, a huge gust of wind came and blew my car down the hillside. I watched it roll two or three times, over and over till it hit a shrub and came to rest on it's base. I had no patience left for my car so I took it as a sign it was not to be, said "fuck it, that car was a lemon anyways"... remounted my bike and then rode off into the sunset.
After the race was over (and amazingly, I did not place last!) I went back over to the hillside which served as the final resting spot for my costume. As I approached the hillside, I also noticed a small boy on his little bmx bike was going over there too. I slowed and watched to see what he was doing. When he reached the gravel, he hopped off his bike and sprinted up the hill. Sure enough, he went straight for the silver subaru. He picked it up, put it on, and then raced back down the hill... hopped on his bike and rode off. As he passed he I said to him... "that looks pretty good on you". He said "thanks, I guess that person didn't want their costume anymore". And well, I kinda wanted my costume back... but mainly I just wanted to throw it away. But, seeing this kid ride around, having fun in something I had fun creating, was just about as priceless as anything else. I pretty much considered it well worth my entry fee for a race I had no intent on actually doing well in.
It was a fun time Bend, lets do this again shall we?
(ps: VeloNews even wrote about us and had photos, saying: "The Ironclad racers who sacrificed their race to dress up as huge cardboard cars were a good laugh." And I'm like... that's ME they're talking about!
