So apparently some people, cyclists as they are sometimes referred to, have been riding parts of Eva Bandman during it’s current construction phase. Apparently this is being frowned upon and supposedly delaying construction because of reseeding the grass. Sorries, but pull your tampon out boys and get back to fucking work. So riding a bicycle through a grassy field is now considered vandalism? There was even a call from Brad Swope to call the police if you see people out there riding. Brad, you’re a dick and if I ever have the displeasure of racing or even taking a practice lap near your stool pigeon ass this season, I will gladly squeeze you into the tape, pull your brakes or if handy throw my beer can into your spokes. As well, if it’s enough riding that the grass is being killed, that’s a shit ton of riding. I’ve been riding George Rogers like crazy and have yet to be able to discern any killing of the grass I ramble over lap after lap, and I’m not the only one riding out there.
At any rate, I suppose the cyclocross community of Louisville is being asked to refrain form riding anything at Eva Bandman until the course is finished. If you really want to kill some grass come on out to George Rogers and pedal around and kill that shit off.
In the mean time Metro Parks, how about you keep you dogs on a leash and have a talking to with your douche bag crew that was cutting the grass at George Rogers Tuesday morning. Perhaps you’d save a little money if they spent less time hiding in the trees heckling bicyclists and more time actually cutting the grass. Just a thought.
If you’re in the area (Louisville) and looking for a new spot to do some cyclocross or light mountain bike riding there’s some new lines being laid down at George Rogers Park off Poplar Level Road. Start/finish spot runs along McKinley Avenune next to lots of grass parking, please park your cars on the park property and not someone’s front yard. Course is marked in orange paint, just follow the directions of the arrows and you should continue to find more along the way. Minus normal obstacles, which will be soon to follow, it’s got everything you could want. Tech sections, wild fast downhills, monster climbs, off camber fun and what may be the highlite of the course so far, the Cattle Shute. The Cattle Shute is concrete draignage ditch that you need all the damn speed you can muster to make it out of safely. This is a deciscion maker section as you can follor along side it and stick to the grass.
All in all, I think this would be a great location for just about any MTB or cross event regardless of our layout or not. The park space is huge and options are endless. Check it out and let us know what you think. Rememeber we’re not professional course designers, just trying to have some fun.
New cyclocross grounds have been discovered. Plans are being hatched and blood will be shed. I haven’t run this by anyone involved, but I’m coining the term Guerilla Cross because one, I like it and two, it makes sense if your’e at all familiar with Guerilla Marketing. As in:
Guerrilla marketing involves… any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources.
There are a few of us in the ranks as of now so if you’re interested in joining up and helping out that would be great. Like I mentioned previouosly, not sure what, if anything will come of all this other than a new playground a bit further inside the city. There’s certainly nothing wrong with going out and enjoying what there is of RRCC at the moment or the future course at Eva Bandman, just thinking along the lines of the more the merrier. As well, with the sort of group we’re looking at getting together for this adventure this will certainly not be your run-of-the-mill course. Stay tuned for updates and if I can get my grubby little hands on a camera I’ll throw some photos up as things progress.
Now, don’t forget, it’s Friday. Go drink some beers and ride.
Tis the season to be preparing for cow bells, mud and beers… perhaps with some annoying vuvuzelas thrown is for good measure. Work has apparently resumed at the new permanent home of Cyclocross at Eva Bandman park here in Louisville and the season’s first Wednesday night practice session went down last night at the now defunct River Road Country Club, fuck you Louisville dog owners.
In light of all these happenings, I will roll out shortly to a near by park for a sort of gorilla cross recognisance mission. Not sure if there will be any sort of event regarding these endeavors, but who knows. Could be a lot of fun. Either way, it’s just a way for me to have a good place to play on the cross bike without having to travel so far to do so. If anyone else would interested in doing fairly out of the ordinary cross races this year get in touch and let’s see what we can come up with. Something I’d love to see is a teeter-totter obstacle…
More stupid shit we put ourselves through is the enjoyment of the Hardcourt Bike Polo. More often than not however, we don’t. This is something we’ve been attempting to slightly alleviate as of late to little avail. Either way, we’re attempting a gathering of the game this coming Sunday, August 22 at say, 7pm to be safe. Not so hot out at that time and it gives everyone plenty of time to forget that we’re meeting up for this throughout the day. If you’re interested in playing, quietly watching or better yet, heckling, make your way to the Shelby Park tennis courts Sunday evening. Beginners encouraged to attend as we never take it seriously in the first place. Except for that time that I was apparently throwing things after our loss in Lexington at this years Bluegrass State Games. If this was actually the case, I can’t begin to imagine I was serious in any way, and if I was, you should know this now, I may have be intoxicated. I know, hard to imagine, but we here in Louisville like the beers with the polo. Bourbon, we like that too. If you don’t have a mallet, no worries, we should have plenty. Worried about your bike getting banged up? Stop being such a pussy. If you’re that serious, you can borrow mine.
All in all, this is a further attempt at landing ourselves a regular, non-grimey parking garage spot to play at. I think if we make this a regualr occurance and show that we can co-exist on a tennis court with the non-existant tennis players at this park it will help our chances of doing just that. Hope to see you there, rain or shine. If you’re on the Facebook, add yourself to the event page.
or… if you’re so inclined, there’s a sort of ridability gathering down in the radness of Portland at 3pm taking off from Kroger at 27th and Broadway. The nature of said ride is to determine what would make the west end more ridable… get it? “Rideability,” anywho, that’s it. I’m hungry.
Oh yeah, Mag Bar has t-shirts designed printed and delivered (not sure about that last part) by the one and only ambiguously awesome duo of Suzanne Edds and Gary Bell at Liberty Tattoo and Art Parlor - go get one! I’m wearing one right now and it totally works!
So I suppose it turns out I’ve more to say that expected. Too bad. LSD is awesome kids, don’t listen to the naysayers.
With the recent closing of the cyclocross course at River Road Country Club (for a fucking dog park!) the city of Louisville dedicated space at Eva Bandman park, also on River Road. While at first I was doing a lot of bitching and moaning in regards to all of this I am now backpedaling and eating my words…
After the Eva Bandman announcement the city also added that they would be investing an initail $50,000. Now, the city has released the above video on the progress at the park and it is looking like this could be one hell of a course. This also got some love over at Cyclocross Magazines blog. Seriously looking forward to watching how this progresses.
Ask and you shall receive… thanks to Mickey at Bike Gallery for sending over the pics below of Peter and Brice navigating the barriers and steps out at Cross Crusade.
So technically I raced a bicycle in Bloomington yesterday. I say technically cause I spent more time on the course before the race than during. Thanks to a malicious tree course side that apparently didn’t appreciate the proximity to which I was riding by my race was cut short. By short I mean on the first lap. The damned thing reached out and slapped my in the face with one of it’s outstretched branches thereby either leaving some form of refuse in my one and only eye or slightly scratching it. At first I thought I would be able to continue on and claim victory over the course and nature but alas, rounding the final turn… on lap 1 no less, I was forced to pull out of the race due to excess eye ball leakage, pain and the fact I was about to shit my pants in thinking I was gonna be blind. All this resulting in the first DNF of my short and non-storied cyclocross career.
Alright, so that isn’t my eye, but it’s gross as fuck isn’t it? Anyway, I believe my eye is just fine. I will however be investing in glasses of some sort to aid in defending my sense of sight from nature in future cycling endeavors. The good news about Bloomington was there were 4 takers of the camo can High Life hand ups, another one that kindly accepted a triscuit, one that told me to fuck off and 2 more that refused on grounds of beer snobishness, but appreciated to offer none the less. Good racing everyone and especially to the largish young lad I believe to be named Michael perhaps? Regardless, he’s awesome and inspiring. Also, congrats to Michael Webber, a.k.a. Presta vs Shrader for another strong finish.
