Cross-tastic! At least 10 reasons why cyclocross rules.

1)  Playing in the mud is a lot of fun!


There haven't been a whole lot of true ol'fashioned Belgian mudfests the last two seasons here in New England and I for one miss the heck outta them.  For those of us with more bike handling skill than fitness the mud can be a great equalizer.  For now, since the season is over and global-warming, er, climate change is having its way with our weather we are stuck watching interweb feeds of the European races to get our mud fix.  

2)  You get to carry your bike when you forget how to pedal it due to oxygen-debt.


This isn't as easy as it may seem.  Often you are running with your bike because it's actually faster to do so than to keep trying to turn those darn pedals over anymore.  And like many cyclists I ride a bike to avoid running in the first place so the idea of adding some running into my training regimen make me laugh so hard that my energy drink shoots out of my nose.


That said it just might improve my results.  Darn.

3)  Duffers like me can ride the same course as National Champions.  That's Tim Johnson passing the beer garden at Gloucester last October.


This is actually pretty darn cool.  A few hours after we get the course ready for them, the pros race on the exact same course we amateurs have flogged ourselves on.  In fact it is our tires that have shown the pros which lines are NOT the fastest allowing them to improve on our lap times.  It's a service I happily provide.

4)  Crashing in 'cross is rarely a disaster...


...except for your ego.  Even though it often feels like you are abso-freakin'-lutely flying around the park the speeds you reach in a 'cross race are nowhere near those you'd approach on the road.  That in concert with the fact that much of the race takes place on grass, dirt or sand, crashes happen often without dire consequences.  Just don't do it in front on the beer-tent and everything should be ok.

5)  If you buy a cool looking kit your kids might think you are a pro.


It's as simple as buying a jersey with sublimated logos and ads.  Do that, pin on a number and pay your 30 bucks and you'll look 80%-85% pro-tastic which is plenty to fool even the most savvy 10 year old.  Go overboard and shave your legs (men or women) and you're 95% of the way there.  The highlight of my 2011 season was undoubtedly the moment when my son looked at a photo of me racing a few years back in an old wool (no logos) jersey and said, "That's from before you were sponsored."  Yep.  My son thinks I'm a pro.  That's better than actually being one what with all the training and travel and pain.  Woo-hoo!

6)  'Cross fans are the best!


I think the above photo says it better than I ever could.  I get the impression that maybe, just maybe these two took a wrong turn on their way to the regional dog-show and had bought beer coupons before realizing their mistake.  It speaks to the spectator-friendliness of the sport that they stayed.  Bonus points if you can spot the Tour De France stage winner in the pic.

7)  'Cross is tough on your bike.


Any cyclist worth his or her doping program is first and foremost a gear head.  Nothing but the latest and greatest will do for us the recreational weekend-warrior.  "Should I drop $2500 on those carbon wheels?" isn't a question that even gets asked because it's tantamount to asking, "Should I breathe this fresh air?"  Those wheels will potentially shave .5 - 1 seconds off your laps times which is the difference between 35th and 38th place!  Plus they look damn hot.  Cyclocross racing will break shite on your bike making it imperative that it be replaced with something better, lighter and shinier.  That makes us gear junkies very happy indeed.

8)  You can look like a gazelle.


As any resident of the African savannah can attest, gazelles are not only graceful they are also steadfast, honest and true.  Not many humans can claim to be all of those things but for a few brief, shining moments on the 'cross course we can get a taste of the elegant majesty these animals represent.

9) (Almost) everyone's butt looks better in lycra.


There are of course exceptions and they can be horrifically memorable but for the most part lycra does a fantastic job of holding-in, molding and shaping in an eye-pleasing manner.  This "ass shaping" phenomenon is similar to the "hot-butt/wet-suit" corollary seen in surfing circles.

10)  It's fun as hell to bust-ass around a racecourse on a bike.


Our society does a great job limiting the fun opportunities of adults.  Riding a bike sorta fast on a usually pretty fun course trying to go faster than some guys/gals who you suspect might be assholes in real-life is, to put it mildly, a hoot.  I look forward to 'cross season all year and then mourn it's passing about 5 minutes after I stop throwing up after the last race.


If this post has made you even slightly curious about my lil' sport wake up early-ish one January weekend and point your browser at www.cyclingfans.com and take in a European cyclocross race.  Most big races start at 9am eastern-time.


To check out my results from this just finished season (and seasons long past) click on this link:


http://www.crossresults.com/racer/24946

Island, part prir (3), the Bay of Smokes.

Combining the words "city" and "Iceland" is a bit of an exercise in, uhm, lying.  The only town of any size at all is Reykjavik and it is small by almost any measure.  Sure it's charming and picturesque and fun but it is just plain darn small.  Reykjavik (The Bay of Smokes) is known for a few things the most famous of them is that it's party (partay) central.  We saw evidence of this (lots of bars, piles of vomit, a fair number of gin-blossoms) but did not partake unless partake means "was kept up all night by drunken fools singing James Taylor songs in the cutest accent imaginable".


It is tough not to be charmed by this the capital of Iceland and it's one and only city (biggish town).  A full 2/3's of the country's peeps live here.  

Harpa Opera House, Reykjavik.

This building, the Harpa, is the jewel of downtown.  It was just about completed when we were there and they were scrambling to dot the t's as we explored it.  It was designed in collaboration with some sexy Scandinavian design/architecture firm and artist extraordinaire Olafur Eliasson.  I am a big fan of his installations (he was behind the waterfalls in NYC a couple years back)and as such I was taken with this building in a big way.  

Harpa from the water, Reykjavik.

It is designed to need no artificial lighting manipulating the incoming light to dazzle and illuminate, a noble goal, but one that seems to have not come to complete fruition.  Light does move in strange and interesting ways inside the building and makes the outside sparkle like, well, an Icelandic jewel (not an Icelandic Jewel, that's Bjork).  It is a success?  I think so.  I showed my appreciation by taking a ridiculous amount of photos of it never quite getting what it is I thought I wanted.  I shall return.

Finishing Touches, Harpa, Reykjavik.

The rest of urban Iceland can be summed up thusly:  there ain't no more.  The second city of the country is the quaint Akureyri (population 17,500).  Here is a picture from the downtown.

"Downtown" Akureyri.

There is a good amount of public art on the streets of Reykjavik and I'm sure I took many pics of many cool pieces of graffiti and modern sculptures but I can't seem to find them.  I will do so and address them in later entries.

Like I said, I have unfinished business in this compelling lil' country and I will be back.  

Nature Baths, Myvatn.

Any country that actively encourages soaking in hot water and drinking beer while shootin' the breeze with your friends, neighbors and countrymen(and countrywomen)is one that speaks my language.  Even if that language is almost 100% incomprehensible. 

Island, part tveir (uh, two)

I could go on for a long time about the virtues of Iceland as a travel destination, a place to live, a photo-subject, a place to eat puffins and whales and putrified shark.  Instead I think I'll just go on for a moderate length of time about all those things and more and punctuate my points with photographs.


There are glaciers in Iceland.  A glacier not only looks awesome (in the original sense of the word AND in the "Valley Girl" sense) but it seems like a living, breathing thing.  It makes noise.  It moves.  It has a presence.  Walking around them and even on them provides many of those "My puny little life has no meaning." moments, like watching a whale swimming, or staring into the Grand Canyon that I kinda like and some others find scary and depressing.

Skalafell maybe?  A glacier definitely.

If it wasn't for global warming climate change this sucker would be comin' for ya!  Instead it's in full retreat.  D'oh!  


I find all of this beautiful.  I dig the desolation, the majesty and indifference of nature, the universally picturesque. It is endlessly compelling.  Some more examples:

Somewhere north of Reykjavik

Julia told us when we left Reykjavik we'd stop every two minutes to take a picture of the "most beautiful thing we've seen in the last two minutes" and she was right.  This was one of those moments.  If Reykjavik had a skyline we could've still seen it from here.  There are loads of farms in Iceland.  They fall into one of three categories: inhabited, abandoned, inhabited but look abandoned.  I'm not sure which that one qualifies for.

I like to shoot buildings, especially simple ones.  Iceland had me covered.

West of Saudarkrokur, on the road to Drangy.

The suburbs of Mjoifjordur (pop. 37)

The road into Mjoifjordur was an epic journey all to itself, one that left Tracy making her peace with the universe assured of our impending doom.  I wasn't ready to die either but rolling our little Toyota down an impossibly steep ravine in the wilds of Iceland wouldn't be the worst way to go.  Imagine the story our families could tell!  We obviously made it.  Our reward was one of the more photographed sights in Iceland.

Abandoned herring boat, Mjoifjordur.

Ain't that pretty?  My Icelandic-Grail was the Norwegian whaling station that lay on the southern shore of this fjord.  Inaccessible by our 2wd econobox and 7 clicks from the head of the fjord we couldn't easily pull it off so we didn't.  It sticks in my craw but it also gives me an excuse to return.

One last glacier picture.  Next post will be on urban Iceland, truly a contradiction.

Island, or as we call it here, Iceland!

Before I get to it I want to say (yell) I WANT THESE PHOTOS TO POST BIGGER!  Click on them and see what happens...please!  I pass the work on to you rather than to spend 5 minutes to figure out what the heck I'm doing on this darn blog.  It's one of the ways I keep the costs down so don't complain.


Iceland was as wild and wonderful as I was hoping it would be.  The only regret I have about our trip was that it wasn't longer.  I am a sucker for bleak desolation especially in my landscapes and Iceland, much like it's sister wind-blown island(s) friend New Zealand, has it to spare.

A couple of toungues of the Vatnajokull Glacier.  West of Hofn.

This photo really captured what the heck I was talking about above.  A bleak landscape that has it's own presence.  There is something invisible looming in the foreground that balances the power of that glacier.  It's invisible sure but no less powerful for it.  Plus there's some power lines too!

Iceland does pump out the power in a rather geothermically slanted way.  I like thick pipes as much as the next guy so that was a plus.  I also like the fact that steam (and boiling mud) hisses (and bubbles) out of the ground just about everywhere you look.  At this one huge geo-power project (Krafla)all the mucking about and drilling they did caused an earthquake!

Pipes from the Krafla power station.

Power is also generated by the various waterfalls that litter the landscape with their aggressive "picturesque-itude" and their awesome "beauty-ish-ness"

Solitary man (no vertigo) Godafoss.

One thing that was refreshing to our jaundiced American eyes was an idea that was pervasive in this wonderful little country...the idea of personal responsibility.  (There is a tad bit of irony present given the fact that Iceland defaulted on shitloads of foreign loans after the economic crash and then basically said "Fudge you!" when given the chance to work out some form of payback.  Personal responsibility on an individual level yes.  On a nationwide scale, not so much.)  You can go just about anywhere you wish.  This idea is illustrated in the above photo where "Mr. Heights-don't-Scare-me-You-Stupid-Foss" is walking right to the edge of the foss (waterfall) that would love to crush him like the puny little human he is.  There might be a sign that reminds you that the world can be a dangerous place and you should learn how to best protect yourself but beyond that you are on your own.  So go forth and explore.  Just remember you might slip and fall and be crushed to death by hundreds of thousands of litres of water or be pecked to death by 1000's of angry puffins.  Quick! Send the lawyers to Iceland!  They got some freedoms to impinge upon!

Lonely barn between Myvatn and Egilsstadir

This one again illustrates that thing I so dig.  The majesty in the bleak.  I realize that I am ascribing a human feeling to an inanimate object but you, dear reader, are going to have to deal with the fact that I'm much more comfortable expressing my deepest feelings indirectly through my photos.  So instead of "Old Barn" by Sometimes Lonely Photographer, you get "Lonely barn".

In all honestly, the barn seemed fine, not the least bit lonely.

I'm gonna make this a two parter so more pics and witty commentary will follow in the next day or so.  I leave you with another from Godafoss.  

Restaurant at Godafoss.

I can't say if it was a lonely restaurant or not.  It was yellow.