On the eve of Halloween, Lilly was invited to a costume party where I ran into Tom, an old friend that I hadn't seen in years. Dressed as the Silver Surfer, Tom's costume time warped me back to Portland circa 1997 when we competed in our first and last triathlon: The Aluminum Man. Yep. Aluminum. Not as strong as iron, but more heat tolerant than plastic!
Absent from the party, Tom's 10-year old son was continuing the family studliness down in Astoria attending his new-found passion: Team Bear on Cross Crusade. Around here, this local cyclocross circuit sits somewhere between Burning Man and Tour de France (check out the link to this Halloween race video).
A month earlier, I was leaving Citybikes shop with the finishing touches on an old MB-2 restoration when I ran into Spencer, Cross Crusade Cat A racer. Returning from an Alpenrose race, he looked at the mountain bike and only had one thing to say,
"You gotta race that bike in cyclocross."
A reluctant reply, "Nope, these old bones are too brittle and this classic is going on Craig's List tonight."
And on Craig's List, it sat there...and sat there...and sat there for a month. A couple of bikey fanatics responded, but no sale.
That brings me to Halloween. Bunny's new flower fairy friend invited us to a costume party where Cross Crusade emerged into the conversation AGAIN. Her husband, Vaughn, also races on Team Beer and offered a 30-minute mount-remount-hurdle-carry training session. I took him up on it a week later, and the next morning Lilly wakes up singing the Halloween classic:
Criss cross applesauce
Spider crawling up your back
Cool breeze, tight squeeze
Now you've got the shiveries!
Ok, all signs are GO! So, I corral the kids and bikes into the van headed for the last day of the Cross Crusade season.
Here's Lilly with her kiddie-race game face just before receiving a season-ending wasp sting.
And River is thrilled to find everyone else wants to play in the mud, too!
With all these criss-cross connections, I can see a season of Cross Crusade in our future. I'll hold onto the old MB-2 for good measure.
