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Single Speed Nationals 2011

In the ebbing haze of single speed nationals, Mr Basiljet nailed this to our door:

Last year’s Single Speed Nationals in the AC of T were an anxious time for tea totallers and ossified administrators the region over, because those roundabout phocine um-ers and ar-ers always facilitate themselves out of a good time. Meanwhile, thanks to the good people of COGS, we were cutting to the pith of what it is to ride, slurping up the juice of the good times and spinning out of fetters and umbrage.
 
This year’s nats were in Adelaide. Adelaide is a fuck of a long way from the home country. You might think that along the long way between here and there, there might be a this or a that. Or maybe you know that a thousand groanmads, a brewery in Wagga Wagga, a sodden spinach and ricotta roll in Hay, a Working Man’s Club in Mildura and a boozer’s rail trail in Clare (optional) are the only anything between here and there.
 
Not a worry though. No singlespeeding bon vivant would choose not to split that gauntlet knowing that such potential for exact disarray would be their prize.
 
A week out from the Nats and with a tingle of expectant pleasure I wheeled the prow of my vessel towards the Adelaidian yonder. I felt a week would be well enough to acclimatise to West End, churches and the desert. In spite of the Great South Australian Beer Swindle in which public bars serve only diminutive schooner measures while referring to them as Pints, this proved true.
 
In that week rumours of beer shortages, bans and purple emanated from the pulsing information superhighway. Apparently there was to be no beer shortcut and no beer at the venue of the main event. I immediately called my broker and asked him to report on the Highbrowcolny Beer Bank’s liquidity. Although my local supply remained liquid and delicious the anxiety of this unexpected beer embargo shifted some mojo. I consulted my notes on this period, and there were none. Spirits were low.
 
On Friday afternoon I met up with El Prez and fellow Territorians at the Brownhill Creek Caravan Park (known from then on as Brownhole). From there we spun 10k to the first event location - a BMX park for 16” crits and beers. We mingled, and someone called alleycat. We did that. Then we went to eat. We did that. Then we spun another 10k back to the Edinburgh (a pub close to Brownhole). We had some beer. We went to bed.
 
In the morning El Prez produced a delicious and hearty breakfast from the back of his van. His culinary prowess in a campground is unrivaled. We followed that up with a couple of frothy chops and set off to meet the group ride to the race. Eagle MTB Park and Brownhole aren’t far apart for a Wandering Whistling Duck, but for a waddling single speeder the destination came less easily. We climbed, like, a lot.
 
We got there, in the end. Timing transponders and race plates were distributed in exchange for identification papers, birth certificates or testicles. An enterprising Territorian affixed his transponder to the fork of a fellow rider.  Although the keepers of time were neither duped or amused, this later earned him a prize.
 
At the briefing, officially, there was no beer and no beer short cut. There was an onion cut, which would involve cutting an onion. Things were looking bleak. Nonetheless we lined up for the Le Mans start. There was an uneasy mix of superheros, super punters and unashamed full body lycra. I self seeded with the lycra boys because their shivers pleased me.
 
There was a signal of some sort I assume and we steamed up the hill and onto our single speed bicycles. We rode about and around and up some rocks and down some rocks and across some rocks with rocks on top of the rocks they were on and then we got to the onion cut. Thank fuck they had frosty cold sports drinks there because holy condom batman we’d earned them. After a frosty cold sports drink the world and all the people in it were better by a factor of coopers mild ale. We did the same thing again a few times. I heard a local was leading the race on a geared dual suspension bike with the derailleurs locked out. It seems that kind of unbecoming conduct earned him a mojo deficit and he flatted on the last lap and some other guy won.
 
On that karmic theme, during the race I was riding with a fine upstanding young local lad. We’d done a few laps and I happened to be a little ahead when someone called track behind my friend. He pulled to the side and the boy in lycra yelling track let out a barrage of swears and insults because that particular spot wasn’t a pleasant place to overtake. I hate losing a novelty event as much as the next douche canoe, but really, that guy must hate losing novelty events as much as ten douche canoes.
 
The race ended and other events followed, the sports drink flowed, and we rolled early all the way back down to the Brownhole and the Edinburgh. Sunday morning breakfast in the park rounded out the weekend. Good times were had as evidence by the slideshow I prepared earlier:
 

Goodnight. 
 
Mr Basiljet.

Rollick is tipping next year’s SSNATS venue to be Beechworth. See you there.

URGENT COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THOSE TRAVELLING TO THE 2011 SINGLESPEED NATIONALS

BEWARE. In South Australia if you ask for a pint you get a schooner and if you ask for a schooner they offer only a middy. 

                                                      Another coarse drinking fact from the Rollick. 

THE THIRD BEER LEAGUE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

The Beer League is a grueling sporting event. It takes place on a destitute kink of bitumen by Lake Burley Griffin in our nation’s capital. Coarse drinkers and keen cyclists each pit their ailments against one another in a race to cover 4.5 laps of the course - 2.6 nautical miles and equal to 1 League.
 
It starts in about the middle. This time it started with a riddle, posed by Ed. The drinkers and the riders make their merry way upon their bicycles to the northern end. The riders usually lead the first leg. The drinkers lag back, their bodily systems protesting against the toil.


 

“I answered the riddle, the answer was STAN. We pushed off. Early morning exertion doesn’t agree with my tender constitution, but the drive to preserve what was previously hard won got out.

 Phil and Joel took off from the start in front and strong.

 At the first beer stop I’d already taxed my meagre reserves of cardiovascular function. Nonetheless, here comes the beer.”

 
At 11:00am-ish on a sunny Saturday morning in September seven riders stopped at the northern end of Dairy Flat road to drink cans of beer as fast as they could.
 
Mr Basiljet rode in third, but took off in first, with Phil close behind.
 

“I cracked my can and gulped at the froth. Phil, who came into the beer stop in first place, had snapped his ring pull. A weakened component or poor technique? Either way, a failed ring pull is the beer league equivalent of a dropped chain. I followed Contador’s example and took full and immediate advantage. I left in first place. Phil was close though and Andre was in third.

 
 
 
 

“Phil’s pace and comportment was devastatingly fluid, his purpose was clear and I witnessed his hindquarters releasing untempered violence into a 53x16 drivetrain. He passed me like an F1 crack fox. I watched the gap widen, he was up and down, writhing about like Cadel was when he manhandled that TT bike making up two something minutes over 40 something k. I just dribbled a little bit, put my head down and thought of England. 

I joined Phil at the southern end for beer. There was a ticking of heavy machinery cooling down. I had only one card to play. Since I had no air rifle and no barrel mounted megaphone I only ever had the one card. Whatever. I played the card.”

 
 
 
 

“I drank like a drain.

Then things got hazy. I think I made a gap on the way to the other end.”

Ed shot this video of the last end, the 4th beer: http://youtu.be/vX75JXQRjyE.

Mr Basiljet brought it home for team Nevernude Racing. Phil crossed the line in second and Andre, with a gratuitous trackstand, came in third.

There were good times all ‘round. Bec Parkes took out the women’s while Erin and Phil contested and won the first transgender league (Erin rode, Phil drank).






Thanks to Brisbane Outdoor Gear some smokin’ hot prizes were distributed. Here we see the great battle of the BeerNutts.








Phil scored a really nice BO Gear tool roll.


Andre was awarded for ‘conduct most becoming of a singlespeeder’

Erin making good use of her prize.



Mr Basiljet thanks his future sponsor, Coopers Brewery Ltd.

ONE MILLION DOLLARS

The Beer League is this Saturday rain, hail or moonshine.

Northern end of Dairy Flat Rd (map).

10:30am for beer drop and briefing.

11ish start

You’ll need at least 4 beers if ridingor two pom poms, 6 beers and a lute if spectating. The control/suggested beer is carlton draught tinnies. 

There will be prizes. We’ll then head somewhere for a BBQ and recovery sports drinks. 
 

Geared bikes are welcome. However If the ability to engage more than one gear is maintained then the rider must supply and drink, during the ride, 1 pint of custard per available gear. There will be bike mechanics on hand to temporarily lock out deraileurs. 

Good luck and high speed.

UPDATE:

Looks like it’ll be dry in the morning, with a low chance of showers in the afternoon and winds that will assist riders on the return leg. 

Goods from ye ole Bris Vegas

Dave from Brisbane Outdoor Gear has sent us some kit, including a couple of oarsome beernutts and a tool roll. They’ll be cast into the hands of those who League. Thanks Dave.

Meanwhile Team Nevernude Racing has begun its vow of silence in preparation for the league. Maintaining radio silence is a deft technique, proven effective by 9 out of 10 sulking children nationally.  

Murmurs of a cancerous rivalry between the current champion and an unnamed contender have surfaced. The current champion was heard to say “That fucker’s insidious. My Garmin virtual training partner rode onto the screen a ginger yesterday”.

Will the current champion employ the 11th type of rolling to secure the championship once more? Rollick, read by Vikings, says AWWWW YEAH.

THE TEN TYPES OF ROLLING

 

1. A to B

 

2. Cycling chic - A to B while self-conscious

 

3. Fixie wheel bicycling - A to somewhere someone will see you do mad skidz

 

4. Triathlon - cycling after swimming

 

5. Cycling for pleasure - with intention

 

6. Training - cycling for displeasure

 

7. Participating in cycling events - secretly racing for pos. 463

 

8. Racing - huffing and puffing behind Ed McDonald

 

9. Riding… just riding
   
    
10. Beer leaguing - transcending the barriers of tinny and case

 

11. Riding… as a Beer League World Champion
    
    
     

This has been a collab’ to the power of max between Stan and Mr Basiljet, curated by Jeromboux the manservant and approved by milk maids and beer wenches nationally. 

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO

 

Last Friday night somewhere in the north there was a room full of coarse drinkers living the good time and hailing one another down the megaphone. There was a gleam of genuine raucous poking through Canberra’s wet blanket - the weighty repressive downforce that the prescriptive citizen-police nuzzle their flabby necks against as they herd their children behind the scowl they kick from out their faces towards any error in the status quo. But in the fallow ground between their view sprout juts of knowing what shit is. And last Friday night a ginger lad with a strong set of legs and keen sense of justice knew what shit was when he took a slug of Moët from the bottle and declared that the unknowing ought to know.
 
And so they will.

They will know training for The Beer League. This will be your reference for how to prepare your spirit for the savage undertaking of Beer League. There are precisely twoish weeks hundred hours before The League will be run. It is premature to now commence turning cranks in lust and preparation but it’s high time to begin phase one. And we’ll start there.

Phase One: Procrastination.
There aint nothing goin’ get done without it. Procrastination is success’ biscuit base. Moist and sweet, homely and warm. Do it well.

High yield procrastination techniques rely on the temporal proximity or ‘soon-ness’ of the upcoming event, deadline or commitment. At some threshold unwise excuses become genuine procrastinative excellence. There are a few sure signs: your house is very clean, your music collection is ordered by personal life era and all your chains now have an even number of links. If you’ve flipped these indicators you’ve sipped from the honey pot of procrastination. But it’s hard to say how you got there.

Procrastination, like a good vegetarian double down and the ability to blow underwater bubble rings, does not come to those who pursue it. It comes to s/he who wants for not that thing which s/he must have. You must have training for TBL and therefore procrastination will precede it.

So in preparation for training for Beer League, be a good receptor of alternative modes of not doing what you should be, pick up the phone, check your email and polish the threads of the bolts on your stem. Most of all, never leave procrastination until the last minute.

We’ll cover what to do then, in the last minute, sometime or another. Until then, keep your shit together.

THEREFORE BEER LEAGUE

A shit-storm of correspondence has been received at the Rollick asking what is of Beer League and whereupon whilst on its intentions, habits and neon lit?

Well speed readers, this is where we lay it out.

A man of genius, thinking, drinking and pedaling conceived the Beer League World Championship at some point in what those unsullied by the study of philosophy call time. That man’s name was Phil, and it remains so to this day.

A shit-storm can’t change its shit-trajectory on its own, and Phil must have known that a Beer League wouldn’t ride itself. He grabbed that idea by the perineum, took it fixie touring and may or may not have introduced it to Jebus (we have made no attempt to confirm that Brett Belchambers is or isn’t a fixie touring-ist).

Beer League, as conceived by Phil, is this:

Start - Middle of the closed and derilct Dairy Flat Rd, GO! Ride to the northern end. Drink One Whole Refreshing Sports Drink (DOWRSD). Ride to the southern end. DOWRSD. Ride to the northern end DOWRSD. Ride to the southern end. DOWRSD. SPRINT to the northern end. Finish. Drink many whole refreshing sports drinks with good people, sit back and maybe BBQ.

Total distance: 2.6nmi, >4 refreshing sports drinks (BYO).

The first Beer League was ridden on Australia Day 2011, Bear locomoted across the line to become the first Beer League World Champion. An account can be read here. The second Beer League was covered by Rollick in a bikini.

The Third Beer League World Championship will be held on September 10. Nevernude Racing, Team Super-powered Elevator and Vince will be there going hammer and tongs for fun and good times because raucous therefore Beer League. Everyone can come along. It’s BYO and otherwise free. For those choosing to ride at their own risk, peril and mother’s disapproval there is a penalty for having the ability to use more than 1 gear (1 pint of custard per gear, consumed during the race) so bring your singlespeed, get famous.