2016 SoCal Cross Fever Season Finale: Showdown at Corriganville

The Montrose boys (and gals) were there, along with the Celo Pacific, Velo Alegro, S.W.A.T., and the gang from Pasadena. Ruffians from OCR, H&S, G2, The Team, Centric, Knobbe Martens showed up along with many others riding in from far and wide. They were dust covered, with nervous sweat running in rivulets from their brows, mixing with the dust on arms and legs. If you looked in the right direction, you may even have noticed a little blood. All had converged on the rustic remains of Corriganville for one final, grand shoot-out bringing an end to a season of feverish rivalry. It made that OK Corral incident look like a pop-gun contest between neighborhood kids.

It was appropriate that the SoCal Cross Fever finale should be held at Corriganville. Sure it was an ending, the finish of another season of cyclocross, but melancholia was put out to pasture, long enough for the racers, their many supporters, and a fair number of regular weekend park users could send the season out with a BANG!

The cowhands, the gunslingers, the hard-luck miners from any of a dozen old west Hollywood frontier towns may be consigned to celluloid these days, but their spirit, the rivalries of competing ranches, of the young gun looking for fame in a one-up against the old master, lives on, replaced for this one day by rivals on two wheels. Cowbells were there, ringing out through the rocky draws, reaching up to rocky heights, same as they ever did, but the colors of calico were replaced by colorful kit, the clatter of chains bouncing over exposed bedrock replacing a jangle of spurs.

I was interested to see what the SoCal Cross Crew could do to turn this rocky gem of a park into a worthy cyclocross venue. I have seen mountain bike races run here and, quite frankly, was expecting to see a greater percentage of wider-tire bikes. Considering the rough and tumble landscape of the little canyon it was a pleasant surprise to see this was not the case - most racers kept to the spirit of the event and rode their cross bikes. I suppose it says something about Dorothy's expertise that she could create a course clearly identifiable as a cyclocross one. Incidentally, and somewhat related, did you know they ran international-caliber motocross and bmx races here during the 1970s? True. I talked with a photographer who shot those things back in the day.

Anyway, melancholy set in afterward, with the realization that the next cross race will not come around for another eight months - the last four months have been quite entertaining.

Anyway, I have put one hundred seven photos from the day into the Flickr album. Check them there and, as usual, if you don't see what or who you were looking for, let me know and I will see what I can find among the other six hundred or so that did not make the album.

After: Grrrr, fierce in the heat of competition

Before: La de da. Sightseeing, Isabel? I gave her just a little flack,

something about looking too relaxed - after that, look out, it was all go.