Bandido CX Report

Yeah, I know.... this should have been up last week. But honest, it took a while for me to get the pics from the official Bandido CX photographer.

Rather than go get our heads kicked in by the hordes up at the Boulder Cup an to honor FMVC guideline #3 (It has been violated enough times that it is more of a guideline than a rule), a bunch of us fat slow guys took Matt Sodnicar (he of The Warmfront, Pactimo, etc.) up on his offer to join in on a Bandit CX race called what else but Bandido Cross.

The rules were simple.

1) Show up at Matt's place at the designated date and time.

2) Bring $5 or something you felt was worth at least $5 for entry.

3) There would be a single lap of the course to let you know what it was...... this would also be your warm-up.

4) Race would be 5 laps.

6) Winner gets the first beer.

Turns out, ol Matt has a pretty nice CX course right off his back yard. The 1.3 mile loop has single-track, gravel, paved, sand, a water crossing, and the Ditch of Death. To make things even more fun, the 70 degree temps combined with the foot of snow to make the course full on cross friendly mud.

About half of team FMVC was able to make it. There were Crossniacs, Team Evergreen and a few others.

The first order of business was for all us fat slow guys to take a vote and relegate the one skinny fast guy to start at the very back. Sort of a reverse call-up if you will.

The Crossniacs were laying out their plan for victory in a pre-race conference.

It was decided that a LeMans style start was in order. With the shout of 3-2-1-Go! we were off.

Well, everyone was off except for Mr. Bristol who thought he had better check out the time of the day. What the hell Bristol? Maybe this was some sort diabolical plot by the Crossniacs.

And we are off!

The funnest part of the course was the water crossing. You could run it....

Or you could ride it. Running it was probably quicker, but riding it was a hell of a lot more fun. You dropped in.....

Hit the power.... but....
On the far side of the creek was a 18 inch bank so you had to dismount to get out. Also, hidden under the water right at the bottom of the bank was a nice, front wheel eating hole. I found it on lap 3.

Either way, you were going to get the mud washed off on each lap.

The Duality of Team Crossniac on display. Dash, after careful study choses option A.

The deep water made sure you kept your knees high.

Mr. Sodnicar seem to be rather comfortable with the water crossing..... it's was like it was his home course or something.

It did not get caught on film but Scotty showed up a the finish line completely wet due to a full submersion technique he tried on the last lap.

It turned out that the Crossniac plan for the day was to get muddy and have as much fun as possible.

Post race recover sauce.

To the winner got the spoils. It took Matt Klick a bit over 1.5 laps before he caught and passed all us Old/Fat/Slow guys.

Mr. Sodnicar said that he "needed to go slip into something more comfortable".

As long as Matt keeps putting on Bandido Cross, that is one less day I will have to drive up to Boulder to race each year.