Tuesdays with Dirty: The last word on SSUSA

It has been over a week now since the little party in the woods happened up in Stowe, Vermont. My bike still sits in it’s bag in my living room, my gear bag is still full. Unpacking would be the last nail in the coffin signaling that the ride is finally be over. Fuckit. They can stay packed a little while longer.

It was an incredible 5 day whirlwind filled with friends (both old and brand new) and perfect east coast single track. I’m hard pressed to put it all into words. Instead, I put together a little video of all the random crap that happened. I think it gives a pretty good synopsis of the events…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MTb1Aa2gUY&feature=plcp[/youtube]

With that being said…here is a little link round-up for your reading pleasure:

Jake and Ryan from MTBVT.com set up a little photo studio next to my aid station and were snapping pictures of everybody as they headed out for the second half of the course. It was a pretty brilliant idea and their images really sum up the vibe of race day. I think the two below are the best. But you can see more of their photos HERE on the Dirt Rag blog and an album of all the portraits HERE.

You can check out what our hosts/race organizers had to say about the weekend over on Mandy and George‘s blogs. I rode along and helped mark a very small part of the course the day before the race and that alone was an enormous amount of work. I can’t imagine what it took to make the whole weekend happen. If any of you ever meet these two, buy them a beer (or 5). They threw one hell of a party

“I knew this event would be a bit of a party, but didn’t realize the extent to which that was true.”  Imagine this guy’s surprise

Remember how Thom got banged? He put up his video on cyclingdirt, it’s what the race looked like near  the front.

29nSNGL made a video of their race over HERE. It shows a lot more of the amazing trails we rode and the soundtrack is by the Black Owls, who played the after party.

We introduced some drunkcyclist rowdy (and tequila) to a lot of east coasters that have never seen our shit-show before…This guy seemed to enjoy it.

I want to give a shout out to Lone Wolf Cycling for bringing their Philly rowdy to the event. You guys make a drunkcyclist proud. Anybody that brings a bullhorn to a bar is alright with me. Check out their stuff, give ’em some love. Lone Wolf is a drunkcyclist.

Last but not least, I will leave you with the story of the coveted DFL. Word on the street is that Will had the best attitude of any racer on course that day, and never once considered quitting. It’s a pretty good little story, even if he did call us “sketchy” and “mountain bike hipsters”

That’s about it. If you have any more links feel free to throw them in the comments. SSUSA 2012 is slated to be in Minnesota next year, and you should all probably go. As for myself, I’m shopping for tickets to South Africa for SSWC and thinking about pulling the trigger. I might as well, I ain’t getting any younger. Call me crazy, but something seems very appealing about riding singletrack in Africa. Anybody want to car pool?

keep it dirty…