Okay, I’ll admit it. Cyclo-cross is completely bad-ass. I’m hooked.

The Beacon race course was sweet. Lots of sandy trails with tight, sketchy turns, not too much pavement, mean nasty ugly terraced run-up, a sandy slog across the beach… nasty. But fast. The mountain bike skills really came in handy when things got loose.

There are some photos from the race here. This is Dan, hotdoggin’ it over the finish line. And one from the previous race: Laura getting up that muddy hill. Shiftless.

I just found some photos and a write-up of last Sunday’s race over at truesport.com.

Next Sunday: Beacon

There is a bizarre form of off-road bicycle racing called cyclo-cross, which uses bicycles that look like regular road bikes equipped with fat, knobby tires. These ‘cross bikes are raced over a mix of grass, mud, pavement and steep hills which require the rider to hop off the bike, shoulder it and then leap over a few wooden barriers or run up a sodden hill during the course of a lap. It looked like fun, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Cyclo-cross is hard. Really hard. On weekends like this past one (Friday - rain, Saturday - torrential rain, Sunday - race day) riders and bikes are covered in muck by the end of the first lap and the riding is what-the-hell-am-I-doing-out-here-spoke-deep-in-mud-at-10am-on-a-Sunday-halfway-through-my-first-lap hard. I have never, ever worked harder on a bike. But each lap got better than the last, even as the mud got worse and worse. I found myself grinning fiendishly, sliding sideways through corners just to make the spectators gasp. At the end of my last lap, I put the hammer down and blew by the guy in front of me, nailing the corner and charging back up the hill to the finish line only to hear “one more lap!” Whaat?!

See, this is my first race and I’m still learning the rules. ‘Cross doesn’t have a set number of laps. You race until you hear the bell and then you do another lap. Seems like the name of the game is suffering. And as much as it hurt during the race, afterward, you can’t remember the pain, only the fun. This was my first race, and I think it’s safe to say I’m hooked. Can’t wait ’till next Sunday.

I’m racing with Team Shiftless from Tropy Bikes in the Verge MAC Series. Yee haw!

[Update] The show was lovely, but it’s over now. I feel lucky that we had the opportunity to have everyone’s stuff up all at once in the same space. Lot’s of people commented that we’re a “really creative family.” I guess we are, but I never thought it was unusual. I just kind of assumed everybody did creative stuff. Everyone wears their own blinders, I guess.

I showed three video pieces. “Three Nights” and “Fortnight” are from my time-lapse photography exploration of sleeping patterns. “You” is a brand-new work (just finished it Sunday morning before the studio opened) which uses a live video camera and monitor at the bottom of a chin-high black paper tube. It was so much fun to watch people’s reactions as they looked in to see themselves in the reverse angle, peeking over the wall, Kilroy-style. There was much giggling. I call it a success.

It was sad to take all the stuff down Friday night. Big thanks to my cousin DJ (aka Dorothy Frey) for having us.

From DJ’s promo mailing:

Art Sunday October 2, 12 – 5
First Friday October 7, 5 - 9

Dorothy Frey Angela Shope
drawings and paintings paintings and porcelain vessels

Guests:
Jim L. Bowman
photography-digital macro panoramics
Linda Bowman
ceramics
Tim Bowman
video
Amy Miller
sculpture (to be worn)
Kent Miller
photography

Keppel Building
323/329 North Queen Street
Second Floor
Lancaster, PA 17603

This month, Dorothy Frey and Angela Shope invite Jim L. Bowman, Linda Bowman, Tim Bowman, Amy Miller and Kent Miller to TWO Art events in Downtown Lancaster:

Art Sunday, October 2, 12 – 5 pm
First Friday, October 7, 5 – 9 pm

Dorothy Frey works directly from observation. Her paintings of trees and fields are like mementoes from daily life: experiences, places, times, ideas, and personalities deliberated through form and space found in nature.

Angela Shope is a full-time artist working in porcelain, oils and watercolors. She draws from many influences, from nature to fashion to cell structures. Her whimsical work is a celebration of color and self-expression.

October’s Visiting Artists: Relatives of Dorothy Frey, the Bowman family have a wide range of talents that they bring to the studio this month: Photography, Video, Digital Macro Panoramics, Ceramics, Jewelry, and Sculpture.