New Tattoos for Carl Decker and Rachel Lloyd - A Report from the 2008 Singlespeed World Championships

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Words and Photos By Michael Riepe & Nanci Ivis

Additonal Photos by Devon Balet Image

(August 24, 2008) Napa, Calif. – We were somewhere on 19th Avenue in San Francisco, heading north through rush hour traffic, one car per green, when the grande mocha began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I’m beginning to feel pretty anxious, maybe you should drive”. It was 10 till, the party had already been going for an hour, and the ride was advertised to start promptly at 5.

My real estate agent Nanci and I were heading to Napa to cover the 2008 Single Speed World Championships, with a stop at American Cyclery in San Francisco for the Friday afternoon pre-race rally y fiesta. A fashionable cycling magazine in Colorado had taken care of the race registration, as well as the trick titanium rig on the roof, and I was, after all, a journalist; so I had an obligation to cover the story, for good or ill.

Luckily, these things never unfold on schedule. We pulled up and the party was going full bore, an eclectic mix of scruffy mountain bikers and knicker clad messengers spilled out of the shop into the street, and the keg was still flowing freely. The shop was giving away a sparkling new blue Raleigh SS to the racer who showed up with the ugliest klunker, and the competition was fierce. Several wannabe slackers proudly showed off their rides to the crowd, but the hecklers boo’d off any bike with disk brakes or suspension, no matter how trashed.

The AC proprietors quickly chose a winner, a guy named Andy from Scotland. At least one bike looked less rideable, but they chose his for two reasons. One: after SSWC’07 he packed up and rode that bike from Scotland to Durban South Africa for an ultramarathon called Comrades. He snapped the frame in Mozambique, had rocks thrown at him in Ethiopia, went through 4 chains and had 100 punctures. And he made it to Durban with 2 days to spare. Two: the shop wrenches informed us that his bike is a death trap. He had welded on some disk brake hangers and removed the V-brake bosses from his suspension fork. Turns out it’s a two part fork, and the brake boss bolts hold the two pieces together.


The Single Speed World Championships is a unique race in the pantheon of cycling events. It is open to any bike, rigid or suspended; disk, cantilever, or coaster brake; fixed or free; as long as it has at most one gear. Choose that gear wisely. First organized in 1999, the event is more of a traveling carnival and raucous party than a modern bike race. To be sure, the course can be as challenging as anything out there, and top pros travel half way around the world to compete. But the emphasis is more on camaraderie and community, with the race a convenient canvas on which to splash a kaleidoscope of debauchery.

In the words of Curtis Inglis and Clay Higgins, co-hosts of the 2008 event, the race was born out of a backlash against the NORBA Nationals and World Cup races, with their high entry fees, precision machined age category lists, and doping scandals. In contrast, “worlds” has only two categories, male and female. Instead of a trophy each winner is given a tattoo at the finish line (in 2002 it was a brand). The oft repeated mantra: “if you don’t want the tattoo, don’t win”. No one has yet refused. According to the race’s Wikipedia entry, prizes have been given for most vomitings during the race, the worst crash, the most hungover, the best finish on a bike stolen from another rider, and the best finish on someone else’s bike because yours had been stolen.

Event organizer and frame building wizard Curtis Inglis demonstrates proper SSWC style.

In 2005 the overall winners were selected by a go-kart race among the top finishers on the bike leg. This twist generated no small amount of controversy in the cycling world, some saying that it took the fast-and-loose attitude a little too far. Who’s to say. But subsequent event promoters have not repeated that particular stunt.

The American Cyclery party ended with a loosely organized bandit ride through the botanical gardens of Golden Gate park, past a ghostly abandoned hospital in the Presidio, and across the Golden Gate Bridge, toward what was promised to be a BBQ and party in the Marin Headlands. My real estate agent and I made our way down the steep dirt road to Kirby Cove to find several hundred cyclists milling about the old abandoned WW2 gun batteries, but no BBQ and no party. The joke was on us I guess. And the tattooed guy who lugged in the gallon of vegan mayo.

Saturday began cool and foggy, but the fog quickly lifted and the heat began to settle in over wine country. Tomorrow’s 10am start time started to seem a little too accommodating. After fueling up at the Soscol Café, a greasy spoon highly rated on the race blog, we headed over to SSWC base camp at Skyline Park for packet pick up. And to stretch our journalistic legs. I opened my notebook, licked the tip of my pencil, and asked my real estate agent how to work the damned digital recorder.

This is when the truly international nature of the event really began to sink in. We met riders from across the country and around the world. Clay Higgins and Grant, race promoters from the east coast, are the guys who put on Dirt Sweat and Gears as well as SSUSA. Fiona and Rowan had come all the way from Australia, host country of the 2003 race. They were expecting Napa to be hot and dry, like ’03, with a similar amount of underwear and women’s clothing. Memorable highlights of that event were a shortcut you could take if you “skulled” (that’s aussie for “pounded”) a can of bad beer, and the bike porno calendars handed out to all the young kids in the crowd.


I took about an hour to pre-ride some of the race course, sampling the initial climb and the last couple miles of technical descending. It was nice to get my sea legs back after sitting in my cubicle all week, and gave me a better idea of how hard to go out at the start. When I got back everyone was packing off to the Napa Bowl bowling alley to witness the selection of next years race hosts.

Expecting an IOC-style bidding process for host city? Not at SSWC. By tradition, the host is chosen with a competitive derby among the bidders. For 2009 there were four teams competing: Phoenix, Durango, France, and New Zealand. There would be two rounds in the derby: the playoff round was a frame of bowling, with the top two finishers advancing to a game of Ms. Pac Man.

Several hundred of us packed in to the bowling alley to watch the drama unfold. Napa Bowl was not too happy to see us roll up on our bikes. Apparently Curtis had approached them with the idea and they wanted $4000 to host the party. Wasn’t going to happen, so we just crashed the place.


The bowl-off was won by Chad “Chainsaw” Cheeny, representing Durango. “Fuzzy”, making a bid for New Zealand (though he lives in Northern California) with his unique underhanded “no fingers” bowling technique, came in second, advancing to the video arcade for round two. Chad won rock-paper-scissors and went first, making it through three screens and setting a very high score to beat. Despite a valiant effort from Fuzzy, Durango took the day

Chainsaw Chad Cheney cool-hands his way to a commanding victory in the Ms. Pacman tourny, finalizing Durango's bid for the 2009 SSWC.

SSWC’09 will be in Durango Colorado, organized by Chad and Jon Bailey of Passion Productions. Early rumors have the race at either Horse Gulch or the Ft. Louis College campus trails. Keep an eye on DurangoCyclery.com for information. Chad and Jon were clearly confident of their chances, having plastered Durango ’09 posters in all the Porta Johns. They’ve already mailed out spoke cards with entry tickets to a select 200 friends. They expect about 500 spots, and everyone will be welcome at a qualifying race to be held in advance. Beta: rent the movie “Rad” which contains a qualifier that will be mocked heavily. You heard it here first!


I woke up on Saturday with some butterflies after a poor night’s sleep. I was surprised at how nervous I was. This was going to be a hard race, and I knew I was in for some suffering. The pre-race meeting began with a derby for the unclaimed entry spots. After making all the contenders run a couple of laps around the horse corral, Curtis informed them that there were a lot of no-shows and they’d all made it in.


We were then told about some of the unique twists. There would be 100 easter eggs scattered along the course. The gang had obtained an impressive mountain of donated gear from a large set of generous sponsors, including some coveted bike frames. Eggs could be exchanged for swag at the finish. In addition, 12 pairs of tighty whities had been printed up with the SSWC logo, first come first served. Riders completing the race wearing nothing but (no chamois!) would receive some of the choicest swag items. We were also told to watch our for a guy playing the bag pipes at a trail junction. The first time we saw him we were to go straight, on subsequent laps we were to turn left.


The race began with a Lemans-style start, a sprint on foot down a small hill to retrieve our bikes, and then a half mile section of dirt road, both of which were only moderately effective at stringing out the pack before we hit the first steep single-track climbing. At which point everyone in front of me stood up and spun out. I managed to elbow my way through the crowd for a while, but eventually we all bogged down and started hiking. There is a lot of hike-a-bike when you’re riding a single speed!


The course was a beautiful cross section of northern California trails: Live Oak and Redwood trees, steep limestone grottos and dry dusty chaparral covered hills, all of it covered with stealthy poison oak bushes. It would be three laps past the starting line, the first lap having a bonus figure-eight loop. After making quick work of the first climb I passed the bagpiper and was on my way, approximately mid-pack.

I rode most of the first two laps leap-frogging with Rowan from Australia. I didn’t recognizing him at first, as he was riding a beast of an orange full suspension rig, dressed in a head-to-toe orange body suit. Spectators started calling him “The Tick”. It did provide excellent protection from the poison oak, but it turned out he needed to beg for help every time he had to make a nature break.

Rowan the Orangeman. Photo by Jacquie P (phelean?)

I was feeling great for the first lap and a half, climbing well and doing a passable job on the technical descents and switchbacks. But after about two hours, at the top of a big climb on lap 2, I started to feel the bonk coming on. Funny, my longest training ride was about two hours! And it was getting pretty hot. I pounded some energy gels, started to make an effort to drink more water, and hoped for the best.

Then I got lapped. The leaders started passing me around the midpoint of my lap, and they were flying. Carl Decker was wearing a big black batman cape and helmet, and a too-small black singlet, and I remember him passing me in the rough at twice my speed.


Then I crashed. I picked the wrong line on a rocky S-bend and endo’d over the bars, coming down hard on my right calf with my foot twisted and refusing the unclip. The leg immediately began to cramp up, and a woman just behind me had to help me untangle. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to crash on that turn because there was a woman with a big camera giving me the judges 10 points, and offering to call in a helicopter. (Are you out there? I want that picture! I was in the blue and white Mountainflyer jersey...) I dusted myself off and persevered, though the cramp would come and go through the rest of the race.

Crash Shot. Photo by Lyndsey Hawkins

When I crossed the start line for the bell lap an officiel asked me if I was stopping. I considered it briefly, and took inventory. I had slowed considerably but felt better after the descent, and pride won out. How much worse could it get? But as soon as I stood up to make the big climb for the fourth time, the bonk hit full strength and I had to hike up most of the hill. When I got to the top the bagpiper was packing up his pipes and going home. But it was mostly downhill from here, so I entered survival mode and pushed on. And on. And on.

The last lap was mostly a blur of pain and suffering. Funny, there seemed to be almost no one behind me anymore. At the last water station I was glad to see another rider pull up and eye the leftover donuts and beer. Until he informed me that everyone behind me had been diverted from the course, and he was riding sweep. I was DFL! Better than DNF, but I was surprised. At SSWC there is a special prize for DFL, highly coveted among a certain beer-swilling constituency, and it shouldn’t be this easy. I perked up a bit and made a special effort to pass a few people on the final descent. I cleaned the baby-head gullies, walked through my nemesis the S-bend curve, navigated the final switchbacks, rolled through the Frisbee golf course, and over the rollers to the finish line.

Once I got off the bike I found that I could barely stand. My real estate agent sat me in a chair and started packing me with ice and feeding me blue Gatorade. So this is what heat stroke feels like. My legs were cramping so badly that I couldn’t bend over to unbuckle my shoes. Apparently this was the ritual for everyone coming in over the previous hour.

The lead riders had come in over an hour and a half before me. Carl Decker (in his black cape and tights) had pulled ahead of Mark Weir on the final downhill for the men’s win, with Barry Wicks (in a gold cape and tights) in a close third. Rachel Lloyd won for the women, coming in about ten minutes before the second place finisher (Name? I think she’s from New Zealand.) Dana Kunz, blogging at ThruTheTrees.com, described the women’s finish this way: “Rachel Lloyd–decked out in proper ProMan gear–stopped about 25 feet from the finish and hesitated to continue. One can only imagine her demure behavior was because she was hoping to avoid the tattooing on the other side. Someone finally re-drew the finish line so that she could be declared the winner.”


Making an appearance after receiving her tattoo, Rachel attributed her win to a perfect bike stash in the Lemans start. When asked about the course she described it as “super technical”. Speaking to a friend, Mark said that “anyone who said it was easy would be lying.” But that’s all this journalist could get, as I was still sitting cramped in my chair through the awards ceremony and swag giveaway.

With a few days of rest behind me the suffering has begun to fade from memory. Hope to see you in Durango in 2009!

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