The First Gateway Cross Cup

Greetings, Team Seagal aficionados. This past Wednesday, an event came to the StL that has been very highly anticipated ever since word first came of its existence. An event of such great proportions, that only the most amazing, most dedicated and ridiculous fan base that our local scene could produce. It has been of utmost importance in the Team Seagal War Room, that the rest of the CX world in some way remembers this place.

And what better way to remember what park it was held in than to honor its namesake, and dress as He-Man himself. Forrest Taft, of course, dressed as a snot rocket, to honor the time-honored tradition of cleaning the pipes.

After having had the best possible primer last weekend in Hermann, we had our voices thoroughly tested and our broadswords sharpened. Despite a course that didn't really feature anything that *really* slowed the racers down, I believe that we did manage to inject a some good flavor into the racers. We had reinforcements from Christopher and Farinella (despite his dead bullhorn), the $$$ fisherman, Jason in his wiener suit, of course all the Kona crew, Elmo, the chicken, it was all there. Between Caleb and Keith, both of whom had never been to a CX race, I think this race was successful in converting two more over to the skinny-ish tire side. And after reading T-tocs' sign, perhaps the pro's now realize that they are, in fact, jerks.

And a big thanks goes to Dan at Route 66 for the yellow horn. More noise is always good.

No usual long-winded story-arc to tell... there was simply too much debauchery and too many amazing stories to re-tell here, and that was only from the roughly 2 hours that I was there. But instead, just that this race has to be one of, if not the coolest bike race to come to our modest midwestern city. It brought people in the community from both sides of the "aisle," from deep within the mountain scene to high atop the road pedestal. EVERYONE was there - and that's the best part of it. It was awesome to get to see everyone. Even saw 'Dmon' for the first time since last season! Won't be long before Bubba returns, but before then we have some more mountain biking to do - Burnin' runs deep within my loins.

Oh, and Barry Wicks definitely now knows that T-tocs is 23.

-Casey F. Ryback, as He-Man