Every year the SingleSpeed World Championship is held in a
different location. Last year it was in Berlin, Germany. This year it was in State College,
PA. Now the SingleSpeed World Championship isn't like most other
races. There's no official sponsorship, series or organization to
coordinate it. How State College got to play host has a lot to do
with Eric Roman. He works at a shop there, went to Berlin last year
and usually kicks ass on anything regarding Single
Speeds.
Registration opened and closed June 1st of this year.
In four and a half hours the four hundred available entries sold
out. People from all over the world have been anticipating this
event since last years event.
For me it all started Friday
afternoon August 19th. Some local Philly Single Speeders put
together a rally in Fairmount park in Philly. About twenty five
people showed up. Most were from the area, but there were a few who
had flown into NYC or DC and were on their way to the SSWC. The
format was simple. Ride a five
mile technical (log-overs, mud, roots and creeks) loop, drink some beer and
ride it again. We did three laps and drank at least
twice as many beers. After that we headed
down to Tattooed Mom's on South St. for
some food and more beer. Then Ben and I went with another guy to
a punk rock show at
the Trocedero. It was a crazy
night with lots of great Single Speeding and of
course BEER.
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Ben and I were at
least smart enough to take the train into the city so we didn't have
to worry about
drinking and driving. Can't say it stopped us from drinking
and riding just about anything we came across.
Here's Ben
riding down the stairs into the
train station.
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Ben doing some more
riding in the train station. It was a late night for sure. At least
we got home safe and
had a great time
doing so.
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Fast forward to Saturday
night in State College - actually we'll back up a bit. Saturday
morning was rough.
I was slow and stupid all morning recovering
from lack of sleep and too much fun the night before. We
finally
got packed and left by 3:00. Once in State College we headed
straight to the bar to register. This
was the scene outside the
bar. The person whose bike was on the bottom wasn't going
anywhere soon.
From the bar we went to visit some people we knew
hanging around various locations in town and out of
town. After
a few beers here and there, we headed to the Straw's house in Julian
to get some rest for the
big day.
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Since Ben wasn't able
to register in time for the race he volunteered to work for the
race. His first
responsibility was directing the mass of traffic
headed into the parking area for the race. Once the race
started,
Ben as able to ride the course. His course responsibility was to
sweep the second stage of the
course. He had to wait at the
first bail out point until the time limit (they had locations and
time limits you
had to make to continue the event) expired, then
sweep all the stragglers to the next bail out point. After
that he was free to finish the course
at his
own
pace.
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There's a lot of crazy things to see
when you get a bunch of drunk Single Speeders
together
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Though this isn't so
crazy. This is Jeff Jones personal bike. Who is Jeff Jones? You can
check him out by
clicking here. Jeff was at one
of the houses we visited Saturday night before the race. He's really
quite
amazing and puts a lot of work/knowledge into the bikes he
builds. I regret now that I didn't take the
opportunity to ride
his bike.
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Back to race day. We
had to be there two hours before the race for Ben to get and carry
out his volunteer
instructions. Meanwhile I relaxed by the Jeep and
worked on my
game face.
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And here's
the gathering of racers before the racers meeting
.
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To help spread things
out, it was a LeMans start. Everyone laid down their bikes
in one parking lot, then
walked over to the next parking
lot. At the completion of the riders meeting we were to all run
around and
through the parking lots a couple times before
grabbing our bikes and racing off.
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