(Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

For many Portlanders who care about our country, last week’s new cycle was very stressful.

The Junior T’s (children of Team Lazy Tarantulas) showed up in force!

What better way to escape for a few hours than attempt to ride a bicycle on mud as slick as ice? That’s what many people did yesterday at the second race in the Cyclocross Crusade series held at Alpenrose Velodrome in the hills of southwest Portland.

It’s been a while since I focused on capturing images of a cyclocross race, and I picked an epic one. After a dry opening day on Saturday, rain returned on Sunday and soaked the top layer of dirt on the technical, hilly course. As late morning rain fell, it became difficult to even walk on some in some areas (I slammed on my butt several times just getting these images).
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(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

It’s a big weekend for cyclocross as the River City Bicycles Cyclocross Crusade series heads to Bend for their annual Halloween festivities.

This year — in addition to the usual two full days of racing, legendary costume contest, and huge blowout party sponsored by Deschutes Brewery on Saturday night — organizers have something new up their sleeve: an adaptive bike race.

The Crusade’s Halloween party has been a benefit for the nonprofit Oregon Adaptive Sports for the past several years. According to Sherry Schwenderlauf with the Cyclocross Crusade, the Bend chapter of OAS reached out earlier this year in hopes of allowing its members to try their handcycling skills on the ‘cross course.

Schwenderlauf says about six people from Bend will take part in the event. Using handcycles, they’ll race for 30 minutes on a modified section of the course’s grassy bowl area near the brewery on Saturday afternoon after the other races have finished.
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The Alpenrose course was full of surprises,
like this dual-option stairway run-up.
Slideshow below
(Photos J. Maus)

The opening race of the Cross Crusade series set a record for attendance yesterday. Kenji Sugahara, the director of the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association says that, despite the wet weather, 1,267 racers participated.

That number is up from 1,078 participants in 2007 and is nearly twice the number that took part in 2006 when 760 racers showed up.[Read more…]