“Get a costume!” You gotta be faster than that if you're not wearing a costume!” were some of the heckling calls from the frenzied area near the barriers on the upper end of the course. A rowdy crowd had gathered on the bandstand and along the course opposite, cowbells jangling and beer flowing freely. Supportive cheers favored those in costume for the day-after-Halloween race (Sunday is always the costume day in Astoria—always, even though Halloween actually fell on Saturday this year.
I arrived Saturday morning in the middle of the Men's Master C race to a field oddly quiet for a cyclocross race. Now and then a racer would come by and occasionally a cheer or weak cowbell sounded. A hard rain the night before turned the course to chocolate pudding that was beginning to solidify between rain showers.
The Astoria double header is a Halloween tradition for the Cross Crusade crowd. Teams rent houses in the coastal town, racers and their families fill hotel rooms, and the hardiest camp on the race course at the Clatsop County Fairgrounds. Sunday's costume race draws the biggest crowd, with racers arriving throughout the day Saturday for the evening's festivities.
As I made my way toward the start line for the women's race, I considered which layers to remove and which to leave on for the race. The sun was beginning to peek through the clouds, warming and drying the field. About a minute later, the bottom fell out of the sky and a torrential downpour turned the course back into a slippery, sloppy mess. Women racers huddled under the arena waiting for the rain to slack off before lining up for the start. Just as suddenly as it began, the rain stopped and the starter began call-ups for those with points to start at the front.
Despite my front-line starting position, when the whistle blew I felt the crowd swallow me as I fumbled to lock my cleat into my pedal. Solidly mid- to rear-pack heading down the steep hill after the start, I tried to find a balance between riding a fast, clean line and avoiding the pileups of crashing riders ahead of me. After making a turn through the flat field at the bottom, the course headed back up the hill. Normally a ridable grade, the mud forced a dismount near the top and my legs, strong while riding the bike, turned to concrete blocks when I tried to run the hill. And my terrible remount technique did me no favors in the short, slippery area at the top.
The course now threaded its way through and around several empty horse barns, then up another hill with a slick crux in the middle. I could clean the hill if I got a running start and could head straight up the center. Unfortunately, nearly every lap presented an obstacle—bikes entangled in the mud or racers spinning out and walking. Then the four-pack of barriers, then another set of tight turns that included a steep, off-camber hill than invariably involved running. I deemed this course the most challenging to date with more time off my bike than ever before.
By the third lap, I had worked my way back toward the front of the pack and was riding with people I normally finished near. With he-man strength, I hefted my cement legs up the hill toward the horse barn and attempted to remount. As I swung my leg over the saddle, my bike, with a mind all its own, swerved abruptly into the wide green barn door. Later, my teammate Abra said she was laughing so hard she couldn't get back on her bike. “I watched you do the worst remount ever and then crash into the barn door,” she said. “I was laughing so hard and thinking 'how does she DO that?'” referring to my strong finishes despite bad technique. I finished in fourth place, my best finish yet.
Sunday morning's fog yielded to a blue-sky day with no wind for the costume race. Favorites included a sloth, a pregnant nun, a robot, and a bike-bull chasing a herd of matadors. Team Sorella Forte raced as synchronized swimmers and performed graceful maneuvers during the race. My two female teammates and I wore red Baywatch swimsuits and carried rescue boards on our backs. One of our male teammates wore swim trunks and wrote “Don't hassle the Hoff” on his back; he ran next to us alongside the course at various points.
By Sunday afternoon, the party at the “heckle pit” by the barriers was in full swing. The sun was warm and the reversed and modified course included human barriers.
Weekend crashes included going down hard as I made the turn into the arena, poised to make an inside pass when my bike slid out from under me, and a dive into the mud during one of the hard turns between the horse barns.
Four o'clock saw the last of the pro racers finish and bike-topped cars streaming toward Portland and another week of reality.
