Southern Cross report

Well done boys and girls. The day was awesome. 132 riders! 132 freakin riders!! (We had roughly 60 riders the first year and 80 last year). The bar has been set high for next year.

The C race had 11 riders challenging themselves. Lorne H has been quoted as trying to set the bar low in C - atta boy Lorne. Hopefully all the C’ers will find themselves in the B race next year. Tanner Hamm won the C, then rode and won the kids race.

The kids had 51 riders! We had to split the group in two to make the lives of the commissaires manageable. It was a good problem. Next year we’ll plan on two kids races.

The B race had 45 riders. A slight issue with the flagging tape sent the first three riders of the race in the wrong direction. They did get turned around and sent in the right direction. It did not effect their standings but it did make for some tense drama. The best race within the race that I noticed was between Bruce and Paul. They were neck and neck until Bruce wiped out in the mud, lost his chain and enough time that it was too difficult to recover. If it's not the mud its the climbs, or the sand, or the barriers, or the trees, or the some flagging tape that snaps off and sends you in the wrong direction.

The A race had 25 riders suffer for 65-75 minutes. Paul Benson took the gold, Olli Hyytianen was the best in sand, and Luc Antaya was the best over the barriers. These boys put on a good show of speed, power, finesse and endurance. All hail the A racers. You are insane.

The turnout at the curling club amazed me too. It was standing room only. The Southern Cross IPA ran out waaay too soon. We’ll triple the order next year. The A winners received a huge glass/vase of beer, farmer sausage, a trophy from Ken Loewen (the oldest rider at 66 - way to go Ken!), and some cash for their efforts. Cash and/or prizes/meat were doled out to the other race category winners.

BIG thanks to our Triple Platinum Sponsors for making the race possible. The double and single platinum sponsorships were appreciated too, but Back Alley Cycle, Pioneer Meats and Sawatzky and Sons Electric really stepped up to the plate to help make the race the biggest cyclocross event the province has ever seen!

Thanks also to everybody for helping set-up/clean-up, Colin and Arlene for being awesome commissaries (or as Cheryl calls them - connoisseurs), Darryl and Vic for the sound system, Tom and Derrick for registration, David and Duke for serving drinks, Jonny and Charlene for the beer effort, hat display and course work, Hal for hauling barriers/pylons from Winnipeg, Huebner for countless hours of hard work with insurance, course work, creative poster work, advertising and many unnoticed details.

Race results found here.

Deluxe race video by Darryl NB found here.

More photos from a local dude here.

Johnny " not racing felt like planning a kegger and having to be the designated driver" Sawatsky