After picking up discount pumpkins and tearing around my property yesterday I realized that cross is in full swing!! It’s been an interesting start to the season.
Returning this year is the awesomeness that is Rodeo Cross. This weekly race is near and dear to my heart. Since I started racing and riding, the Folsom/Sacramento community has been so welcoming and Rodeo Cross was the beginning. From the great friends I’ve made there, the intense workout and the hand-ups through “Heckle Hollow” all make this the best evening of the week. The final race is tonight and I’m hoping there will be costumes! Rodeo Cross is also directly responsible for two of my latest projects. The first is my cross “team” Aloha Mr. Hand-up. This is a super amazing team (consisting of me) inspired by some awesome people, again at Rodeo Cross.
It started when I was wearing my full road kit and getting heckled mercilessly. There is nothing worse than being a matchy-matchy roadie on Wednesday nights. (Unless you’re throwing down at the race ride, but that’s a different animal altogether)
Anyway, I was at a loss what to do.
I’d talked to some of the Jortz ladies and loved their message: You don’t need expensive clothes to have a great time on a bike. Then, one night, another racer was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and i heard over the sound system, “We need more Hawaiian shirts out here!” Inspiration! I headed to my local thrift store and picked up a brand new to me shirt. It was perfect! Breathable, stretchy and just generally rad. The very next Rodeo race, one of the idols of cool, Stace, started shouting Aloha Mr. Hand-up to me. I was completely lost until she reminded me of Sean Penn’s character in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (This is the short version, the longer one actually has Spicoli in it, but also some not so general public appropriate elements 😉 And so my cross identity was formed! Now I rep Aloha Mr. Hand-up at all the local races, and hope for a Hawaiian beer sponsor to pick me up.
The other current project inspired by rodeo cross is building my own cross course. I have a few acres of cow pasture behind my house, and it is criss-crossed with trails. The cows take the same route to and from where ever they are going and have worn in some great paths. It’s long been a dream of mine to have my own cross course and with the help of my roommate, I’m getting there. Just completed the first step yesterday, which was determining a loop. Now that I have that, it’s just putting barriers in and making sure the course is clear. It’s about a 5-7 minute loop with lots of flowy cow trail single track, a couple of climbs, and some creek crossings if it ever rains out here. There’s really nothing better than tearing it up with my best friend, on a perfect evening, out behind my house. I’m really excited. Maybe, once the course is perfected, I’ll be able to host a pick-up cross day at my house. That would be amazing.
Basically, rodeo cross is great and everyone should try it! It may change your life, or at least your kit.
Aloha!