South Side Ice Cross #4: When Donuts are Penalties, not Prizes

Air temp: -2C
Wind: 6km/hr NE
Conditions: Very slippery due to over night rain. The soil has 2-3cm of watery mud concealing a frozen hard base, so once you start sliding, that's it. Plenty of goose droppings to spice things up. No real ice problems to speak of.

People: 10 racers, 4 spectators.
Geese: Many.

Surely this was the best day of racing thus far. There was plenty of mud and the front side of the course was sufficiently difficult that slow-but-technical riders (raising my hand) were provided a slight advantage. There were four heats. Madison I, Madison II, The Donut Race, and the 4/3 Enduro.

After the first madison, we adjusted the rules a bit for the second. After each half lap, the first rider through would be paired with the slowest for the second leg, and the last rider through would be paired with the fastest. This led to some really exciting finishes!

Rory brought along his roadie friend Burt, who borrowed the pink bike. After a couple of laps of figuring out the cross thing, be proved his mettle and was moved up to the ranks of the stronger riders.

Maybe it was the excellent conditions, but everyone wanted to keep racing, so we decided on a staggered start two lap race. Three waves would leave, with with a tasty twist: the first four riders through after the first lap would have to dismount, eat an entire donut, and then remount and go again. Sadly, only Burt actually followed through with the challenge! Patrick was looking too green to ride, so he just stopped for a minute. And Jesse didn't stop at all!

The corners were really slippery, and at least one barrier dropped riders right into a mud puddle afterwards, but generally speaking barrier for and runups were pretty strong -- or at least markedly better than they were a month ago.

Tim showed up in typically chromatic craziness. His Surly fixie's rear wheel met a premature death, so we traded shoes and he rode my bike for a while while I officiated.

It actually looked like a race today! Every once in a while, passers by would ask what we were doing. Also, Susan got lost a couple of times, but I tried to redirect her back onto the course. She did really well, considering the major bike handicap. For the enduro race, some of us did four laps, and others did three. Jesse, Patrick and I formed a pack for a couple of laps, but by the third I'd been dropped. Without Liam and Dan around, it was a dogfight all morning between Patrick and Jesse -- but ultimately Jesse surged for the win. Or did he?

To make matters more complicated, there was a donut rule in effect. Each rider would need to consume a complete full size donut (or three donut holes) before they'd be considered finished. As I came in, I noticed that Jesse was leisurely nibbling his donut -- so I skidded into the finish and attempted to stuff and entire glazed chocolate into my mouth at once. But no dice.