Two Wheeled Locust: World Single Speed Appreciation Day

By the power vested in me by absolutely no one, I officially declare today to be World Single Speed Appreciation Day. This pronunciation was made earlier today with no one there to witness, but as the chairperson and sole member of the World Single Speed Appreciation Day Steering Committee, I hold this declaration to be valid, true and absolute. If you're celebrating today for other reasons, now you have even more reason to celebrate.

Go give your one speed bike a hug. Send an e-mail to your favorite purveyor of single speed accouterments thanking them for all they do to enlighten the masses. Put aside your usual contempt and give a friendly wave to that ironic mustache messenger kid riding down your block on a Gucci track bike. It's a feel good type of day, so why not spread the love?

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If you've been stopping by my site looking for race reports from the past two weekends, you've probably figured out I'm in slacker mode. It's unlikely I'll have anything substantive posted in the next week, so here's the Reader's Digest version of the last two weekend of racing action:

5th place, Expert 40-49, Hop Brook Dam XC: A surprisingly large turnout for the first race in the Root 66 Series. All the Pro/Expert categories had huge fields (there were 28 in my group alone) and the weather can best be described as "shitty" (40 degrees and pouring rain). But if you want to race mountain bikes in New England in mid-April, you gotta expect that Mother Nature might not cooperate. My only complaint for the day is that the promoters decided to shorten our race by one lap. Regardless, I was pretty stoked about a good showing in what turned out to be an hour an a half race.

3rd Place, 2 Person Open, Leesburg Bakers Dozen 13 Hour Race: I'm still digesting the events of the weekend...and recovering from a what turned out to be a pretty hard effort. Les and I teamed up to do battle against some really fast guys who had also entered the 2 person category. Props to Wes and Jeff Bahnson for taking the category and overall race wins with a total of 25 laps. Second place in the 2 person category went to Kris Auer and Bad Andy with 24 laps. We chased and chased but those guys were just too strong. Good on ya, C3 just isn't for cyclocross anymore. Les and I also finished with 24 laps, a total of 168 miles in just over 13 hours. Great race, good times. One to put on your calendar for next year.