DURANGO — When you’ve won as many mountain bike races as Heather Irmiger, the biggest challenge can be deciding where to put all your awards.
Saturday night was no different.
“I’m thinking tramp-stamp,” the newly crowned women’s single- speed mountain biking world champion from Boulder said, pointing to the small of her back. “I would never get a tattoo otherwise. But this is kind of cool because it’s kind of symbolic.”
Irmiger may just as well remove any shred of doubt as to the symbolism behind her first bit of body art. The reigning mountain bike national champion understood the mandate, as did the rest of the field of more than 1,100 single-cogged pedal pushers, long before crossing the finish line first among the females at Saturday’s Single Speed World Championships ’09 race in Durango: Don’t win if you don’t want the tattoo.
Permanent ink is perhaps the greatest peril of taking the SSWC race seriously enough to win, and both Irmiger and men’s champion Ross Schnell of Grand Junction discovered shortly after crossing the finish line that the first-place prize was no joke.
For that matter, neither was the race itself, although it easily could have been confused with a carnival.
Since its unofficial inception sometime in the latter half of the 1990s, the SSWC has attracted cycling’s lunatic fringe to destinations across the world. Their celebration of cycling stretches the parameters of modern mountain biking by bringing it back to basics.
“It’s hard to explain until someone tries it. But I like to say that single-speed mountain biking sort of distills your riding experience,” said Travis Brown, a Durango native and Olympic mountain bike racer who boasts both a SSWC tat and a full-blown cattle brand to show for his two victories. “You don’t think about shifting, you don’t think about a lot of stuff, but there are a lot of things that you do think about.”
Ask any member of the quasi-cult that comprises the single-speed nation what the attraction is and you’re likely to get a different answer from each of them. Some tend to pride themselves on suffering in a way that gear-dependent mountain bikers simply can’t comprehend. Others profess the purity of a stripped-down bicycle lacking shifters, gears and derailleurs. Some see it as the ultimate personal challenge, or a way to better tune into the terrain, maybe a form of freedom, even artistry.
“It’s kind of similar to what mountain biking was like when I first started 20 years ago. Then the UCI took it over and it became very refined in its disciplines and kind of came up with some rigid parameters,” Brown said. “That’s one beautiful thing about the single-speed worlds. It’s kind of a self-policing, family-governed event. . . . It’s a really unique facet within cycling.”
Loose and unique are excellent descriptions for the show that rolled through the forest surrounding Durango on Saturday. Reggae music wafted throughout the upper reaches of Raider Ridge, near the finish line littered with tire-crushed beer cans and cowbell-clanking spectators. Course clowns and live musicians entertained riders at various locations along their route.
Suffice it to say the SSWC is far from the norm for bike racing. There is no sanctioning body, no official timekeeping and much of the course remained shrouded in mystery up until the race began.
Many entrants bristle at the idea of racing, taking their stand by riding in costume. Cheerleading uniforms, frilly dresses, fishnet stockings, feather boas and wigs were worn in abundance. Some of the women wore costumes too.
“It’s a little bit less serious. It’s bike racing with a smile,” said Russ Zimmerman, among the group of five calling themselves Passion Productions that orchestrated the event. “I noticed at the finish today, no one had that kind of ‘game face’ on their face. Everyone was smiling and having a good time.”
That’s not to say the course wasn’t up to world-championship standards or an Olympic-caliber field. The ride featured more than 22 miles of technical terrain and 5,000 feet of climbing, enough to knock Brown out of contention with a crash despite a gap of more than 2 1/2 minutes over Schnell with only a couple miles to go.
“It was a really physical, demanding course,” Brown said. “I was giving it all I had. I gave it a little too much, I guess.”
Riders came from as far away as New Zealand, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Canada to sample the Durango single-speed terrain, then watch the Kiwis and Italians do battle on the basketball court at the Ska Brewing Company-sponsored awards party for the honor of hosting SSWC ’10.
A year before, Chad Cheeney won the right to bring the event to Durango in a high-stakes bowling match followed by a rousing round of Ms. Pac Man.
“This event is a little more inviting and more personal, not so serious in the sense of where some mountain biking is these days,” said Jon Bailey, another member of the Passion Productions crew. “I think it’s based off hope. It’s kind of like a hope for humanity. This group just wants to go out and ride bikes and push the limits and celebrate. When you see something with all these people coming together and enjoying it, it’s hopeful.”
