COUNTING YOUR CROSS BLESSINGS: RIDES, RACES, CALCULATIONS AND NEWS FROM THE OLYMPICS

Last night's Crazy Bastard ride included a turn through the Game Area. Here's a dramatic recreation of what happened when I tried to show off my Mad SkillZ on a cross bike to Big Mac, while trying to bomb through some single track on skinny cross tires.

Time to ride some dirt? Cupcake will take time out from her road racing career, and Olympic Watching, and say's she is ready for some Crazy Bastard rides. I believe Cupcake and some other CB's are planning on meeting this Tuesday (tomorrow) at 6 pm at Townsend. Lights are not required, unless you mean lite beer, and that's gross.

While riding the game area I thought for sure that I saw Julie Boonen at the top of the trail. I couldn't catch up to her to ask her if she'll be doing any of the early season CBX rides, but I wasn't fast enough. This is her, right? She's wearing running shoes, which is a sure clue, I think.

Yeah that's her. This is Julie Boonen's bubble-gum trading card photo, so I'm pretty sure it was her I saw on the trail. I also wanted to know why her brother wasn't in the Olympics - or was he?

CRAZY BASTARD OLYMPIC WATCH & REPORT

When I saw these Olympic Rings I thought it must be the Winter Olympics, and not the Summer O's, and that Body Miller was on the loose in the Olympic Village again. As it is, when you see these you know it's time for a Crazy Bastard Olympic Watch.

Today's Olympic Watch features Cycling Faces. The first face is Cav's - pretty much featuring his lower lip. A lip hanging out like that has to be a drag in a sprint. Kinda defeats the purpose of the aero helmet cover, doesn't it?

Seems dashing old Cav was a upset because of negative racing countries that didn't like him. He also said he got screwed by the Germans. So what's new? Crack a history book and go to the The Britain and Germany WWI  and WWII. Personally the biggest negative for him was probably that damn hill.

A happier look (and why not?), from Women's Gold Medal Winner Marianne Vos. This was Vos crossing the line yesterday and taking the Gold. She was so excited about being an Olympic Champion she couldn't contain herself ....

Pretty much the same way she couldn't contain herself winning the Cyclocross World Championship this year ...

Or here, where she celebrated a Stomach of Anger win the same way ... seems like any win is an exciting and win for Vos. But after watching her this year, my past Women's Cross Favorite, Katie Compton, is going to have to pick it up and get her head back game to get me out of the Vos Fan Camp.

CALCULATING CROSS RACING RESULTS

Here's one idea for transferring points between what appears to be two seemingly incompatible cross series in 2012. Load your points into a Beagle or Chocolate Lab USB device and do them "doggie-style."

Now that the schedules are all posted by Michigan cross racing, for Tailwind, Stomach of Anger, and Kisscross, the "cross-talk" and "cross-chatter" I've been hearing is all about  transferring points from the one Kisscross race that's included in the Stomach of Anger series, this year, with the other points from SOA races. Since the categories are so different between the two series, I don't see how it's going to happen, but I have a couple of suggestions that might smooth the whole process and make everybody happy.

The first idea is to use the same method that I used for Kisscross races over the years, which is counting everything on your fingers. When I raced Kisscross, when I got too tired to count on my figners I just rode until I was real tired and then pulled off and put my ticket on the spike before anyone else did, which pretty much assured me of a win - at least until I was DQ'd later on. Now I guess Kisscross is going hi-tech and leaving "Simple"behind and this method won't work anymore. I'm also wondering if the series will change its name from KEEP IT SIMPLE CROSS (KISSCROSS), to KEEP IT DIGITAL CROSS (KIDCROSS). 

I thought it might be useful if I loaned the good folks at SOA the computer I use to calculate tire pressures and gear ratios for every cross race. I spend a lot of time on it before every race, loading in temperature, rainfall and gravitational pulls, and the proximity of the nearest Starbucks, so I'm on it alot. I'm going to ask Big Mac if there's a place for it in his Cross Trailer. I thinking the answer is going to be a BIG NO.

Another way to calculate and transfer points would be to ask my mechanical Pit Mechanic, Dorf Assman to do it. He's pretty good at dropping 5 psi in the rear, cleaning mud out the cassettes, and scrubbing out the pedals with a toothbrush, which I think will be all the skills you'll need to get the job done. All I want in return is some new C-batteries for him. Yeah, that's what he runs on, amazing, isn't it?

Another way to calculate points that don't match up - ask a kid. There are plenty of kids everywhere and I hear that they are all computer whizzes.

I'm also wondering if one of the USA Cycling Officials (this is a re-enactment of Adrianne trying to calculate points while I'm yelling her at because I had too much coffee before the race) can calculate the points at the end of the race. Well maybe not.

My worry, and some other's as well, is that it will be too daunting of a task and may take longer to arrive at results than it is to find out who the actually winner of the Tour de France is every year. Are the drug test back by the way? I'm waiting for the men's Olympic results to come back positive any minute now.

I've also heard that the organizers may just count watts from each race (so you'll all have to watt meters I guess) to calculate results. My suggestions is that you could count calories - how many you burned, versus how many you loaded on in the parking lot drinking beer after the race. The results may not be right, but at that point, who the f- cares, right?

"Surly Bastard is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."

Of course the best method of achieving corrected race and series results would be to use the Manchurian Calculate Method. All the racers would be drugged and hypnotized and results would be subliminally transmitted by a code-word or signal. 

No matter what the "results" it sure is nice to have so many great choices for racing this year. Make as many races as you can, and enjoy!