Adventureskope

The NZ Singlespeed Championships

Hey loyal Adventureskope readers – I thought I’d share a piece that I wrote for New Zealand Mountain Biker Magazine on the New Zealand Singlespeed Championships. I was stoked with how it turned out and wanted to share it with you guys seeing as many of you are outside of NZ and would have struggled to find it at your local newsstand. Enjoy and many thanks for tuning in ~ Scott.

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No Gears, No Problem – When You Have Beer and Silly Costumes.

Struggling up a hill in the only gear I had I looked to my right to see that I was being passed once again. A rather buxom man clad in coconut bra and grass skirt said little as he moved past me. I didn’t say anything either, after all, there’s nothing to be said when you get dropped by a guy who looks like a drag-queen five appletinis into a Saturday night bender. Welcome to the New Zealand Singlespeed Nationals.

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This all started six months ago. I’d just finished a 2000km bike tour in Canada and I was bored. I was bored of biking, tired of the same trails and sick of hours on the bike day after day. I needed something new, something that would relight my riding furnace. Somebody suggested singlespeeding and I was intrigued. Not truly intrigued by the actual act of riding a bike with one gear, but interested why people were drawn to a sport that by all accounts was a step backwards. A de-evolution, a conscious choice to do something the hard way.

Late one night I was playing New Zealand’s national sport and trawling TradeMe for deals. Scanning the bikes I saw a ride that was set to change my summer. The mid-2000′s Kona had been lovingly been converted to a singlespeed and re-painted Anzac blue and affixed with a stylized southern cross of red stars. I knew it was the bike – a mini-bidding war ensued and as I went to bed that night I was officially a singlespeeder.

Once the bike arrived and I took it for a spin everything suddenly made perfect sense. It was harder and that’s the point. But it was also simpler and that’s also the point. The efficiency was staggering – the raw transfer of power between the pedals and the wheels was awesome. Suddenly geared bikes with their zillions of complex parts, wasted energy and extra weight looked like the archaic ones.

At first there was the instinctual reach for the shift lever when the incline increased. That sensation soon passed, before long I got into the groove and the simple, pure, elegance of just riding became a form of active meditation. Without the clutter of shifting, the slap of chain and the squash of full suspension to get in the way all that was left was silence. I’d glide through the forest with stealthy speed – when the hills got steep I’d get out of the saddle and power through. The downhills were faster; you had to hold that momentum.

Before long my old friend, my twenty-eight speed full squish, was spending more and more time in the shed. The singlespeed was becoming my weapon of choice. The idea of racing on my SS came innocently enough, a query from my wife asking what bike I was planning to ride in the Motatapu. I wasn’t planning to ride my new toy, but in a moment of wine assisted bravado I announced to a group of friends I was going to race on my singlespeed.

Great – now I was stuck. It turns out the race went well and in another moment of vino fueled ambition I let slip that I was planning to ride in the NZ Singlespeed Champs being held in Queenstown in late April.

Fast-forward six weeks and I’m standing at the start line next to a girl in a vinyl nurses uniform, two guys dressed as Asterix characters and more dudes in drag then K-Road on a Saturday night. It’s fair to say singlespeed racing is a bit different to normal mountain bike racing.

The course was an unknown – even though I was a Queenstown local and the 7-Mile trails are in my backyard I had no idea where the course might be headed. There were a few things I knew – the race was 42km long and had a frightening amount of height gain, somewhere in the 2000m range. There would also be a beer shortcut at some point during the race.

Unique to Singlespeed racing is the addition of beer. Racers have the option of skulling a brew to allow them to take a shortcut and knock a bit of distance of the race. The DOC concession would only allow racers to take the beer shortcut on two of the five laps. Most grumbled over the lack of liquid courage available on course, apparently the DOC doesn’t share the same view that serious racing on one-gear bikes, in costume on full-on single track is a good mix with alcohol.

I wasn’t sure what to expect – would there be the best racers in the country in sponsor decal covered unitards warming up on wind trainers and tinkering with their bikes worth more then my car. Or would it be a pseudo keg party with bikes thrown in the mix like some sort of test of courage before the ambulance was called. The truth was it was a bit of both. The top dogs were there with their shit-hot rides. There were also the aforementioned hooligans looking like the after shot in anti-drinking advert.

The start was another unique one. Without bikes we were all standing there ready to run to our rides Le Mans style. One small difference – we were all holding the front wheels of our bikes. At the go we had to run a 1km lap through the forest, return to the starting area, re-attach the front wheel and start racing.

The race brief was short and simple – more time was spent discussing beer and the formality of the fact that the winner (in both open men and women) would be getting a tattoo as a symbol of their victory. As the Singlespeed saying goes, “If you don’t want the tattoo, don’t win.”

Amid wisecracks and the spitting rain somebody shouted go and we were off. Like some sort of steeplechase meets a cross-country run in fancy dress we pushed and shoved our way around the run and returned to our bikes. It was bedlam, sweet, glorious bedlam. The girl beside me lost her skewer somewhere on the run – never found out if she managed to track a new one down – I had bigger fish to fry.

It was great to finally get on the bike and start riding. The whole summer had lead to this; all the (beer) training, (costume) planning and (emergency chunder) preparation had come down to the next couple of hours.

At first everything felt great; I was moving along with the pack and feeling good. I was among a mix of costumed and serious riders, the best I could tell I was mid pack. The reality of the day came crashing down when we hit the first major up-hill of the course. As the hill steepened I got out of the saddle and started to power my way up it. Looking around I could see that most of my fellow racers had chosen a gear that was a bit spinnier. As I cranked up the first obstacle and felt the lactic acid build in my legs and the reality hit me like a bucket of ice water.

I’d picked the wrong gear. It was going to be a very long day. It’s amazing the difference two teeth make. What I would have done for two more teeth on the back. There was nothing to do but get down to work and push through. Snaking through one trail after another the course gained altitude with startling efficiency. Halfway through the first lap the course hit the summit of the 7-Mile system. The welcome relief of downhill brightened my spirits and brought a smile to my face.

Ripping through the first half of the course I was nearly at lake level when it started to climb again. One more time, back to the top of the world. Out of the seat, well lets be honest, I wasn’t really ever in the seat, I churned up the hill and more then once wondered just what the hell was I doing here? I could be eating a nice lunch at a cafe right now; I could have slept in and left all this carry-on to the strange zealots of a bizarre cult. But the truth is – I was in the cult. Much against my planning this strange sub-culture of masochistic meditation, beer, buffoonery and bikes had become a ramshackle family of sorts.

Cresting the summit again it was all down to finish up this lap and start it all over again. The first lap felt terrible, and not even in a self-deprecating funny-ha-ha sort of way. It felt bad, real bad. I figured the second lap was bound to feel better, at least I was hoping it would.

To my sweet relief the second time round did feel better. Perhaps my body had reached some sort of state of acceptance. Midway through one of the tougher climbs a large sign beside the trail summed it up rather well, “Pain is just weakness leaving the body”. There was a certain sense of comradeship in the knowing that everyone out there was living under the ethic that it doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.

I was getting into the groove and the laps were beginning to blur into a mash of hills I could ride, hills that nearly killed me to ride and hills that I had to hike. The downhill’s only got better; I found the lines and some sneaky airs to keep it entertaining.

By the fourth lap I was ready to take the beer shortcut. My thinking was to take my maximum two shortcuts in my final two laps – a sort of reward for making it that far. Pulling into the tent that atmosphere was beyond festive – the crew was well into it. The music was blaring and a frothy cold one was shoved into my hand. I’ve never been much of a chugger, but this was the moment I’d trained for. Down in one and I was off – my head spinning from the sudden addition of alcohol, energy and something cold to drink. As I crested the top and started down towards the end of my second to last lap my mind started to think that I was nearly done – I’d nearly knocked the bastard off.

sneaky author photo bottom right.

The final lap sucked. No sugarcoating required. I wheeled into the beer shortcut again for last call. I tipped my head back and poured the ale in like Barney from The Simpsons. It went everywhere and I even managed to drink some of it. As I started up the next hill I had a moment of clarity – I was in fancy dress, covered in beer, my head was spinning and I was in need of a lie-down. I hadn’t felt like this since my buck’s night – but that’s a whole other story.

Soon enough I hit the highpoint and it was all downhill to the finish. I seemed to gain strength as I lost altitude. The end was in sight and all I could do was smile. I was elated, not because it was over, but because of what I’d done. As I crossed the line I knew I wasn’t in the running to get a victory tattoo, in fact the men’s winner Garth Weinberg already had his tattoo by the time I finished and the Ladies champ Anja McDonald was next up in the chair.

Handshakes all around and stories of the day spread like wildfire. Though it was a race, like the culture of Singlespeeding, it was a race like no other. There was a kinship and a community amongst us all. Well maybe there was – it might just be the beer talking.

Come October the World Singlespeed Championships are in Rota-Vegas. I’ve got my place booked; it’s going to be a hell of a race. I just have to sort out a costume and work on my skulling – the rest is easy.