The Black Fart Goes to the 2000 Big Bear Nationals
By Sabine
Since my hopes of handing in my CPA License for a Pro MTB License were dashed during my race on Friday night, I signed up for the singlespeed race on Saturday morning. Would I be ready for 18 miles of one-gear fun after 24 grueling miles of my regular Expert race on Friday night? Ha. It didn't matter, it's a singlespeed race.

So I wake up early on Saturday to wash the Black Fart. I was hoping he would shine up some. He didn't. See, the Black Fart is kind of a mongrel. It's my old Voodoo Bizango frame. I was coming home from a race one day when a truck lost its load of plywood right in front of me. In addition to doing some hefty damage to my GTI, the plywood also dented my Bizango. I bought my Steelman with the insurance proceeds. But, aside from aesthetics, the Bizango frame was okay. Dented, scratched, but okay. So we took it to a builder in Santa Cruz who removed the derailleur guides and changed the dropouts and painted the frame a dull black color and left the dents for character. We scraped up parts that were lying around the garage and Voila! The Black Fart was born.

The Black Fart is a worthy racer and has been ridden to victory in both the Sea Otter Classic and Big Bear Nationals in '99. But that was by a skilled rider who had no trouble pushing the 34x17 gear up hills. Considering my poor performance Friday night, I begged Alan to put on the 32 ring. He snarled, I whined, and soon enough I pedaled to the start line in my 32x17.

The start line was a bit of a shock. Gone were the usual crowd of Expert Women racers with serious pensive racefaces. Instead I was faced with a hodgepodge of racers? riders? weirdos. This was one strange group of guys. And girls. There was one other woman in this race. Yay!! The guys celebrated having two women in their race by drinking more beer. This was going to be interesting. Team Big Bear scheduled the singlespeeds to start with the Clydesdales and tandems, as if we were all part of the same circus sideshow. Well, the singlespeeders in our group were not happy about that. So we made a pact. None of us would go off at the gun. Instead we would wait a minute for the Clydesdales and tandems to get out of sight, and we would have our own well deserved start. The gun went off, we didn't. You should have seen the look on the officials' faces as we all stayed at the line smiling. They shook their heads and decided to give us our own official start. They also played some appropriate backwoods banjo music while we waited.

Then the gun went off and the fun began. That was the craziest start I have ever participated in. I am used to revving it up at the start, getting faster and rolling into a progressively larger gear. None of that here. Only way to go faster was to pedal faster. I was outgeared by most of the guys so I had to pedal like a 8 year old kid on a bmx bike to keep up with them. Try this at home. It is very funny as your butt rocks from side to side and bounces off the saddle. I managed to tuck in with the group and draft them down the long fireroad start. The pedaling was so silly that I laughed out loud. Once we hit the singletrack, about 6 more singlespeeders came out of the bushes and joined our group of 30. Then a couple of guys took off on a small hill. This pissed most of the singlespeeders off. They started yelling at the guys and cursing them for racing. Huh? I was thoroughly confused. Wasn't this a race? As most of the guys chased the racers, I fell towards the back of the pack. I was happy there. Guys here were singing and telling dirty jokes and drinking beers they stashed in their jerseys.

Once we hit the climb, the singing stopped as everyone struggled up the mountain in one gear. I stood and sat, stood and sat, pushed my butt way back for leverage, used my upper body to help pull and I felt great. My weary legs from last night’s race were gone. My climbing legs were back. Good. I was going to need them. I passed some singlespeeders who were walking, passed some Clydesdales, passed a tandem. Why couldn't I feel like this yesterday? Not having any gears to choose from on the climb was fun. It's amazing what kind of gear you can push when you have no choice.

Now, my boyfriend advised me that I would need to use the flats and the downhills for momentum. Singlespeed racing is all about maintaining momentum he said. NO. He was very wrong. The flats and downhills are for resting. Resting, and coasting so that you can drain all the lactic acid that builds up from pushing a big gear up a big hill at 8,000 feet. That's what the flats are for.

The downhills made me break out in laughter again. There is nothing you can do. A few times I would forget and attempt to pedal, only to have the cranks whirl helplessly beneath my feet. Nothing to do on the downhills but tuck, coast and enjoy the ride. Some of the Clydesdales I passed earlier would pass me on these sections. I would try to draft them, but they went by too fast. I would pass them again on the next hill and they would freak when they realized I only had one gear. I think one guy proposed marriage. Either that or he proposed murder. Not that there's much of a difference.

I realized that the race was almost over. I was having so much fun that the time and miles just flew by. This has never happened in one of my serious races. Never. I was almost disappointed that it ended so soon. I crossed the finish line and was handed a beer by some of the singlespeeders who were already done. I guess I didn't finish too far behind them. I found out that I placed 17th. Woohoo. That calls for another beer.

Curious about singlespeeding? Here are some links to get you started...

Sheldon Brown Singlespeed Conversions – The king of all things biking-technical tells us more than we need to know about converting a singlespeed.

Singelspeed.Net – Articles, resources and stuff for singlepseeders.

Singlespeed Racer – Cool British site and the official site of the European Singlespeed Champs.

Singlespeeds Anonymous – Join others with the illness. A good singlespeed links section.

Single Speed Outlaw – The Quarterly Singlespeed Magazine seems to be getting stale, but still some good stuff in there. Be sure to visit the Taproom.

Cars-R-Coffins – Bikes + Punk Rock = Freedom. Whatever...I like their socks.

Angry Bitter Singlespeed Society – I don’t know why these guys and gals are angry or bitter, but they seem to be having fun.

Surly – No nonsense bikes and singlespeed parts. I just like that their dials all go to 11.

One Fucking Speed – Pedal, you pussies! Stories and stuff from the U.K.

Spot Bikes – My first singlespeed was a Spot. I dug it. Jen jams on it now. Check out Spot’s bikes, parts and definitely check out their wool clothing.

Webcyclery – Good source for singlespeed shopping.

Matt Chester – Hoopty Singlespeed Juggernaut. He builds em, he rides em.

Rock Lobster – Paul's cool. He wears Milo Ackerman glasses and jams and builds bike frames.

Soulcraft Bikes – Singlespeed frames and conversion thingies.

Steelman Cycles – If you saw the smile on my face when I ride my Manzanita singlespeed with the Disco Trout paint, you would understand.

On-One – U.K. frame makers with a penchant for frame naming.

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