Trick or Treat!

Velo Bella Surf City Psycho-Cross
By Natasha Perry
Santa Cruz, California


Boo! Words don't really do this race justice - it's a lot more fun to just look at pictures. Really. You get to see cyclocross racers who might want to be cyclocross-dressers, or maybe a cowboy, french maid, sumo wrestler, hot short wearer, tigger... Just do me and yourself a favor and check out Sabine's blog.

But now you are wondering about berries, beer, and Queen Ann. It can all be explained. I found a new job that I loved, which was doing the sponsorship stuff for the race. The sponsors were incredible!!! (see full list at end of report) As we live in the berry basket of the world, Cal Giant generously offered up FRESH strawberries that they picked just for the race. I thought maybe a few little boxes of berries, so I roll up to a huge warehouse in my little Honda and a forklift comes out with a PALLET of Sberries! They were sooo delicious.

And any decent CX race would not be complete without beer...so we got the best beer possible from New Belgium Brewing. I love this company! Not only do they make incredible beer, but they have a job description called the "Beer Diva". OMG - I have to admit to being jealous. But we did make'em race hard for that beer!

Queen Ann. You thought that I sort of forgot about the actual racing. Nopie-nope. An incredible course had been put together, complete with a soul-sucking run-up. But when you have Queen Ann on your side - the ghosts and goblins screaming in your head to stop crawl back to the woods and hide for fear of what she might do. Not to mention the scary cadre of Halloween characters yelling their encouragement! The women's A line up was star studded and I clung to them for the first lap and half, but my eyes crossed, my stomach heaved, and the Queen and I settled in and came in 8th. The best part was seeing really, really strong turn-outs for the Women's B and C groups. Woohoo!!! (If you haven't met Queen Ann, she's the Bella's groovy Kona cross bike.)

Last but not least, our complete list of sponsors: The Spokesman Bicycles, Vanderkitten, De La Paz Coffee, Bicycle Trip, New Belgium Brewing, Sheila Moon, Gizdich Ranch, Clif Bar, DeFeet, Black Diamond, Cloud Nine, Timbuk2, California Giant, Fox Racing

Clicky for full results and oodles of Photos!

Happy Halloween!