You may not be aware, but as my buddy Stevil eloquently puts it
, "there’s a huge push to ‘keep cross weird‘, but to not mistake that for throwing beer in the faces of people who potentially don’t want beer thrown in their faces."
Couldn't agree more, but I've been stewing on a little incident since last Sunday that I need to get off my chest (it's taken considerable time just editing the curse words out). Let me set the stage for you a little. I'm a fan of cycling, and as such I go to cycling events. I don't really race anymore, and don't usually have too many dogs in the hunt at most events. I just go to support something I've been into for a long time. Some think that's weird, but football fans will spend all day screening TV from their couch, or tailgating, or at the stadium. No one should bat an eye at either notion, in my opinion.
My football buddies wanted me to come do said football couch thing last weekend, but in some kind of Halloween miracle I convinced them to come to the Waffle 'Cross SICX race in Eagle instead. "I've got a bag of bells, a bunch of beer, some Solo cups, and it's nice out. Let's go heckle some bike racers. You'll dig it?"
I showed them pictures such as these. They're all in.
Now, Stevil's quote up there is in reference to a pro 'cross race they had at a bicycle trade show in Las Vegas this year. At night. In all their wisdom, the promoters never expected things to get all Rowdy Roddy Piper and some serious world class pros got beers thrown in their face (just the liquid, no cans or bottles). Racing a bicycle steeplechase in circles at night, in Vegas, at the epicenter of all things bikes in the US that week, they got beer in their faces. Who knew? But racers being the self-absorbed sort that they are, they weren't expecting anyone would go to a bicycle race in Vegas for any reason other than to see how ripped their legs looked in the light of The Strip.
So that's one thing, and no one likes to get beer thrown in their face when they're going anaerobic, but there is another thing that is a tradition in 'cross racing and it is called a "beer handup." It is where you pour part of a beer into a cup and offer it to racers on the course. While they're in the throws of the race, they grab it, shoot it, and throw the cup aside. Off they go and you as a spectator go pick up their cup and reuse it with more beer for the next guy/gal. If you want to be a b-hole you put gin in the cup, but I recommend only doing that to your buddies.
That last part is crucial, you advertise what you have. "Beer handup?" and if you're nice you run with the rider a couple of steps like you're in an Olympic relay to avoid spillage. This is a tradition of cyclocross that goes back long before you or I.
So we're out there, we're doing this, my friends and I, and we bought all this beer and brought some swag and I'm showing them how it's done and they're loving it. Not at first, mind you. At first they were angry they had to leave their house and get outside on a nice day, and also because no one was taking the cups. I explained, "Listen, you have to get in the head of a racer. No one starts a race intending to be a crushed loser. Most think there's a chance they'll win this thing. So you'll get no takers on lap one. Probably none on lap two. Lap three, you'll start to see some cracks, and that's when you tell the guy in 6th that he's way off the guy in 5th and he'd better grab a gear or a drink. Tell the next guy he's about to get 'chicked!' (passed by a female) and then...watch 'em come to daddy every lap from there on out." Half-hour later, they (my football friends)...they're old pros. They found something new here. This is bitchen. People are finishing and making it a point to come back to our spot and thank the beer hand-up crew for our support. We're "lifesavers." "We haven't seen that spirit here since 1969" said some jackass Eagles fan [who I wish would die soon].
Feel good story of the decade, right? Yup, 'till the Women's heat. That's when on lap three (and I'd already given some hand-ups to several very happy-to-see-ya ladies) a woman is coming up the climb and I start asking if she wants a beer hand-up.
"What is it?" she says?
"It's beer," and I begin running to meet her pace.
"Beer?"
"Yeah, it's beer, if you want it, here you go."
She takes it, and throws it back all over me. Her male husband/mate was apparently shadowing her on the course because he was right behind her in the same kit and said, "Yeah, Honey. You show 'em!"
You showed me, alright. You showed me and a bunch of potential fans of your sport. Listen, you take it, or you don't. There are lots that don't, there are many that do, but what you don't do is take a beer from a fan that is there to support you and throw it on them. And lets be clear, she didn't take it to her mouth or take a sniff and realize it was beer and didn't want it, oh no. She was mad that beer existed, took it from someone who had it, and threw it back on him.
There was a little fallout. The racers immediately behind her asked what that was all about and might have thrown around some words in her wake, but nothing else. Except the real "miss" with all of it: my buddies were immediately turned off. They asked if that happens often, and I said, "no...not to me. Never, actually."
I probably won't be able to talk them into coming to another 'cross race. So here's the thing, lady (and I love ladies, if it were a male I'd be saying the same thing. She happened to be female), my panties are not in a wad over this, but think about it next time. If you were in the NBA and a fan offered you a beer from afar and you went over to the front row and took his beer and poured it on him, you would be fined more than I make a year. But your sport doesn't even have fans like the NBA, or football, or nearly any other sport I could have followed that day. Your sport doesn't have cheerleaders and Ford Truck sponsors and fireworks. It's not easy to get up early in the morning on my weekend to watch you turn laps in a field, but I do it. Keep in mind, however, I'm the rarity. My friends are the norm. Look around at your little cross event and what do you see? Racers and their immediate families. No other spectators. I'm sure you get a discount on product and you think you deserve it. You don't. You're not selling anything. No one is looking at you to see what frame you're on and then going and buying it at full retail because you went through a sagebrush loop fast one weekend. You're not Lebron, and even if you were, he treats his fans like gold specifically because they are there to support him.
I couldn't care less if you like beer, but you'd better come away with something from this so here it is: Spectators don't need 'cross. 'Cross needs spectators.
Get it straight, "Honey."
-BC
Credit: Re Wikstrom Photography
