SSCX?

Let’s take something fun & beautiful and complicate it.

That sounds like a few relationship I had, and to mirror that; it’s the way I feel about NEOCX and my love of SSCX.

I’ve been racing cross for around 15 years now. Most of that has been on a single speed. Mostly because of the fun of it. I’m not going pro anytime, so why not have fun with it. (I’m going to pause for a bit, and so should you and re-read my last sentence at least 5 times and let it sink in)

And as the Single Speeders increased, we were granted our own category. (and a special thanks to that individual, you know who that is….) I thought this was great. I would be racing with people all with the same ‘handicap’ as I. I’ve known the feeling all too well of a cross race hitting pavement and hearing the clicking of gears, and I’m left alone. Then after the race looking for the other people that raced SS and seeing where I stacked up with them. Now the playing field is even. Great idea….

Well; I took a few years off from racing because there are many more important things than racing bikes (I should take a moment here again as well for this to sink in, but I won’t. because if you don’t get it, then you won’t get this and you should stop reading now).

And as I was getting back into the swing of wanting to race, my buddy tells me about the SSCX class. I was stoked. I get to the line, and I’m surrounded by a bunch of really fast guys. My first thought…”what the hell?”  Then I thought that maybe they broke up the class into two…nope.

So now as the time has gone on, I’m still confused about the SSCX class. So now it is nothing short of guys (and some gals) racing in the SSCX class and then moving on to their geared class. So is the SSCX race just a warm up for everyone? And now that they have moved the time of the race to 9am for this reason, are we just creating some kind of sand bagging?

Well…I can’t win in my category, but I may have a shot in this one & I really want the points in my category as well…so I’ll do this.

Is it NEOCX again catering to the 1% of racers in Cleveland that care about points? Is it a way to kill attendance? To kill off spectators? To kill off the participation in SSCX as a whole? I know half the SSCX field has a hard time getting moving so early in the morning esp to race.

I welcome any discussion….